COLUMN RIGHT : Scout ’68 Team Before Fielding New Taxes : If proposed increases piled up a surplus, the state would be ripe for a replay of Proposition 13.

The year was 1968. It was opening day for California’s newest major-league baseball team, the Oakland A’s, freshly arrived from Kansas City. The fans were in a festive mood--until the dignitary was announced to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Gov. Ronald Reagan was greeted with lusty boos timed by one reporter as lasting three minutes. After tossing out the pitch, Reagan commented, “I can certainly hear that a helluva lot of you paid your taxes.”

It was April, and not only was a new baseball season about to begin, but income taxes were due. Much higher income taxes, because of a plan signed by Reagan to close a yawning California budget deficit the year before.

As opening day approaches for this baseball season, California finds itself with another huge budget deficit.

The story of Reagan’s first-ball ceremony is remembered well by David R. Doerr, now tax specialist for the business-sponsored California Taxpayers Assn. In 1967, while employed by the Assembly’s Revenue and Taxation Committee, he worked on the tax increase plan, which was signed by Reagan.

“Basically, the Legislature taxed everything that moved,” he said recently. Sales taxes were increased, liquor taxes went up, as did inheritance taxes. But the engine of what was then the largest tax increase in California history was the income tax. Rates were increased, brackets were narrowed, exemptions were replaced by tax credits. The income tax was made extremely progressive. In fact, Doerr said with regret, “it became a moneymaking machine.”

Moneymaking for government, that is, money-reducing for the taxpayers.

In 1967, the Reagan Administration faced a $2.7-billion shortfall. That was 15.7% of the state budget. In 1991, the administration of Gov. Pete Wilson faces a staggering $13-billion deficit. That is 23.3% of the current budget.

The 1968 plan raised taxes by $900 million and cut spending.

In this deficit spring, talk in Sacramento once again turns to tax increases and spending cuts to fill the hole. Wilson proposes tax increases of $1.8 billion, although he has avoided a general tax increase so far.

However, working groups composed of members of the Legislature and the governor’s finance office have just issued a 49-page report filled with a cornucopia of tax-increase and spending-cut proposals. Again, there is a feeling that government may tax everything that moves.

The package includes income-tax increases. There is also a plan by Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti for a stand-by sales tax to kick in if all efforts to deal with the deficit fail.

Separately, public employee union representatives have suggested a laundry list of “loophole” closings to raise billions.

There are alternative proposals, such as Assemblyman Tom McClintock’s assertion that the state can save $14 billion without a tax increase through spending cuts and reorganization of government programs; and a suggestion from a coalition of tax groups that calls for a freeze on government spending at current levels.

However, those supporting major tax increases say that while revenue may be up slightly, service will be cut because of growing demands and inflation.

If the governor and Legislature reach the same conclusions as the governor and legislators of nearly 25 years ago, a general tax increase is in the offing.

Before California rushes to embrace new taxes, there is an important lesson to be learned from the deficit crisis of a quarter-century ago. The tax increases signed by Reagan did more than close the budget gap. They kept pumping revenue into the state treasury after the crisis was over. In fact, the tax increase piled up so much revenue that within a decade California was sitting on a $6-billion surplus, or about 40% of the entire state budget. That surplus, revealed during the campaign to pass Proposition 13, persuaded voters that government was too fat, and they voted in droves for the famous property tax-cutting measure.

This experience teaches that if permanent tax increases are approved to close the state budget deficit, there must be a sunset clause to end them. With the war over and the recession petering out, the circumstances that caused the deficit are coming to an end. When the budget emergency ends, any tax increase passed to deal with the problem must also expire.

If not, the state will be headed down the road toward another tax revolt. And there will be no joy in California, because state government, again, will have struck out.