TALLAHASSEE -- Florida legislators will start the new year in familiar fashion: by cutting aid to schools and other programs, borrowing money, skimming cash surpluses and hiking traffic and court fees to patch a $2.3 billion hole in a leaky state budget.

The special session that begins Monday will bring the third major round of cuts in 10 months and is the result of a prolonged nosedive in tax revenues caused by the recession-wracked real estate and credit markets.

Barred from deficit spending by the state Constitution and firmly opposed to new taxes, the state's Republican leaders are in a budgetary corner, forced to further constrict spending.

''Times are bad for Floridians,'' said Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami. ``We're going to have to make decisions here that no one will really like.''

The next series of budget moves is probably only a stopgap measure and a prelude to what is seen as a bleaker regular session in March, when about $4 billion more in budget cuts will be needed to balance next year's budget. Also due in March is a new revenue estimate that is expected to show continued flat-lining of Florida's economy.

''Tough times require tough decisions,'' House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin, told his colleagues in a memo. ``They are the choices we must make.''

Gov. Charlie Crist has outlined a plan to cover the deficit with a combination of spending cuts and borrowing from state trust funds that are supposed to be reserved for particular programs.

The session is a test for an ideology championed by such Republican icons as Ronald Reagan and Jeb Bush that government is the problem, not the solution.

The state budget of $66.3 billion is about $6 billion less than it was a year ago, the largest year-to-year drop in state history.

A POSITIVE VIEW

To fiscal conservatives, the budget crisis is really a budget correction. In percentage terms, state spending rose by double digits from 2005 to 2007, and now it's decreasing at a similar rate. To some Republicans, that's worth celebrating.

''It's easy to talk about being a conservative when there's enough money to pay for everything. Now it's time to act like conservatives,'' said Rep. Paige Kreegel, R-Punta Gorda.

But with unemployment in Florida at a 15-year high, Medicaid rolls booming and 10 percent of the population subsisting on food stamps, Democrats and some moderate Republicans argue that cutting government services will only make things worse.

''We're talking about severe budget cuts,'' said Rep. Ron Saunders, D-Key West. ``These are going to have major impacts on people.''

Democrats say the state's budget woes prove that the tax system is inadequate. They want to consider increasing revenue into state accounts with such things as a cigarette tax hike of up to $1 a pack.

Republicans specifically took that issue off the table for the short session, but will consider increased fines on civil and criminal court filings and traffic violations to minimize the impact on courts, prosecutors and public defenders.

The goal, said Sen. Victor Crist, a Tampa Republican who oversees justice spending, is to scrape enough money together to ``keep the courthouse doors open and the prison gates shut.''

PARTISAN COMBAT

Democrats are in a combative mood. They are bashing the Republican plan to raise court fees as a tax on the ''little guy,'' and they say Republicans have cobbled together the rough outlines of a budget deal before ever walking into the Capitol.

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