INDIANAPOLIS -- Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said Friday that he was prepared to keep essential services such as public safety running if lawmakers do not pass a new spending plan by midnight Tuesday, but warned that most of state government would shut down.

Daniels said he would use emergency powers to keep state police and prisons operating, and public assistance -- including unemployment insurance -- would continue to be rendered to those already eligible. The Indiana National Guard and health officials would be available on standby if needed.

"The state police would continue to patrol the roads of Indiana. The prisons will remain open, and no one will be released or unsupervised," Daniels said. "Public assistance checks, we believe, can continue to go, including unemployment insurance, to those already qualified."

But he said state parks would close, Bureau of Motor Vehicle branches and other state offices would close, as would casinos and the lottery because they are regulated by the state. Most of the state's 30,900 employees would be furloughed.

Daniels said blame for any shutdown would rest solely with Democratic leaders who control the House because they have not budged from their position on a budget the governor said would decimate the state's finances and force a future tax increase.

Daniels said with a midnight Tuesday deadline looming for lawmakers to pass a new budget or a stopgap funding measure, he felt compelled to warn the public of the stakes involved.

"I continue to hope and expect and predict that it will not come to this, but I did not want to wait until 24 hours before this remote possibility could occur to let the public know what the consequences would be, and that we're ready if forced -- and I stress forced -- to do this," he said at a Statehouse news conference.

Democratic Rep. Scott Pelath of Michigan City, vice chairman of the budget-writing House Ways and Means Committee, dismissed Daniels' statements as premature and said the governor was using threats to try to win support for a Senate Republican budget that Pelath said would devastate many school districts and do nothing to create jobs.

"The governor's going around the state scaring people about a potential state shutdown. They ought to be scared of the budget he wants," Pelath said. "We're continuing to put in a lot of hours in here at the General Assembly trying to see if we can work towards a bipartisan budget agreement."

The Democrat-led House and Republican-ruled Senate did not pass a new budget by the regular session deadline of April 29, forcing a special session that began June 11.

The Legislative Services Agency has concluded that except for a few state institutions -- including psychiatric hospitals and schools for the blind and deaf -- state government would come to a halt at midnight on June 30 without a new budget or stopgap funding measure.

LSA, the General Assembly's nonpartisan research arm, cited a state constitutional provision that forbids money being drawn from the treasury except through an appropriation made by law. It also concluded that the governor does not have emergency powers to spend money to protect public health and safety.

But the Daniels administration said its research indicated that there were legal and fiscal means to keep vital services such as public safety operating.