For want of a cheaper soda, many Washingtonians are likely to suffer.

Last year, lawmakers passed an excise tax on soda, candy bars and bottled water in an effort to plug a yawning deficit. But voters — after a $16 million initiative campaign bankrolled by the Washington, D.C.-based American Beverage Association — decided they’d rather have cheaper soda and candy bars than a state government that can adequately educate its children or provide health insurance to those who can’t afford it.

The soda tax alone would not have made the difference. But it would have brought in more than $216 million this year, a step towards statewide fiscal solvency. Instead, we’re facing one of the worst budget crises in the state’s history.

Opposition to taxes is understandable when people are struggling to make ends meet. Escalating property taxes are particularly difficult for Vashon’s residents, many of whom are land rich but cash poor. But opposition to a soda tax? It’s hard to fathom.

Now, as a result of an ongoing recession, Washington’s over-dependence on the sales tax and decisions we, the voters, made in November, the state’s safety net is being shredded.

Indeed, Gov. Chris Gregoire, in announcing her 2011 spending plan, questioned its very morality.

The cuts are far-reaching.

Gregoire has recommended the complete elimination of Basic Health, which subsidizes the cost of health insurance for 66,000 working adults and their children.

She’s ending the Children’s Health Program, which provides medical coverage to 27,000 children whose citizenship has not been documented.

She’s proposed saving $2 million by ending a program that subsidizes interpreter services to medical clinics and hospitals that serve Medicaid patients, a decision expected to affect 70,000 people.

She’s recommended that grants to community health clinic be cut in half; another program, Maternity Support Services, is also slated for a 50 percent cut.

In the coming weeks and months, various interest groups will cry foul ­— some have already started — in an effort to get the Legislature to find funds to resurrect what they consider a particularly important program. Lawmakers, however, have few options.

Again, thanks to a decision we, the voters, made, the Legislature won’t be able to approve any new taxes unless it has a two-thirds supermajority — a virtual impossibility in a Legislature where partisan lines run strong, predicts State Sen. Sharon Nelson.

It’s very likely that on Vashon we’ll work hard to take care of our own. And it’s good that we try. But even here, where generosity and resourcefulness run deep, we’ll be hard-pressed to repair this badly frayed net.

In the end, it will take a statewide commitment — a decision by the majority of the voters — to reverse this course.