SACRAMENTO — State Treasurer Bill Lockyer warned that a spending cap that the Legislature qualified for the ballot will do untold harm to colleges and universities if approved by voters next year.

The cap, approved last year by the Legislature as part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggers last budget, is unusually restrictive and will force a significant downsizing of government, Lockyer said Wednesday in remarks to the Sacramento Press Club.

I dont see anything fundamentally objectionable to the idea of spending caps, Lockyer said, but youll have unintended mischievous consequences with the ballot measure, ACA 4, which provides for a 3.8 percent rate of growth for government spending.

The problem, Lockyer said, is that one of the fastest areas of government growth, health care spending, grows as much as three times the rate of inflation. Because no one has been able to figure out how to curb health care costs, the Legislature would have to go after easier targets, such as universities and colleges — which withstood hundreds of millions in cuts this year alone.

Thats a bad idea, Lockyer said. Its bad for our future. Its not the right cap. … As a long-term investment strategy for the state of California to invest in those public sectors that create jobs, and create good jobs, its doing exactly what we shouldnt be doing.

Lockyer praised Democrats for knocking back the states structural deficit from $45 billion