Today is the deadline for leaders of the state’s legislative committees to present what the departments they oversee would look like if their budgets were cut by 5 percent.

When the list of draconian cuts becomes public, there’s no need to panic. The across-the-board possibilities are likely for show and represent a worst-case scenario.

Last week, Democratic House Speaker John Richardson and Senate President Beth Edmonds sent a memo to chairmen of the Legislature’s various committees. The instructions were to work with state government agencies to paint a picture of what things would look like if everything were cut by 5 percent.

There’s nothing magic about 5 percent, nothing except it’s the number that some Republicans have used when arguing that the state’s budget could be balanced without resorting to borrowing. Much of the homework sent out to the committee chairs over the Memorial Day weekend is about countering the Republican argument.

With a $5.7 billion two-year budget, a 5 percent reduction would save about $285 million.

But hold on. Education is off the table. Voters have mandated an increase in state spending, not a decrease, and that’s the largest chunk of the state budget, representing roughly 40 percent of all spending.

Medicaid, called MaineCare here, accounts for another 21 percent of the total, but remember that every $1 the state cuts from its Medicaid spending means about $2 lost in federal funding. Every dollar worth of cuts causes about $3 worth of reduced services.

What’s that leave? Broadly speaking, higher education, corrections, public assistance and transportation, along with the business equipment tax reimbursement, the warden service, and so on.

Democratic committee chairmen likely will demonstrate the real pain – suffered by real people – that would result from such cuts. It’s possible entire areas of service will be zeroed out.

The exercise might prove useful. It will put a face on what 5 percent of the state budget actually buys, and it might help Democrats make their argument about why the budget – balanced with borrowing but including no increases in broad-based or sin taxes – should stand.

But it’s largely theatrics, a horror story better suited to Halloween than Memorial Day.