House made game effort to spread the agony fairly

The state budget proposed by House Democrats this week is ugly but honest.

It was going to be ugly no matter what – given the Grand Canyon-size revenue hole the Legislature faces – but it could so easily have been dishonest.

All kinds of strange and foolish ideas surfaced as the sheer brutality of the next biennium’s shortfall came into focus. There was talk of borrowing one-time cash against future revenue, of pretending that there’d be 25 months of revenue to cover 24 months of spending, of expanding gambling and legalizing drugs for the sake of easy money.