So the state has a budget deal, fixing a problem about which you
may have heard some distant shouting but that probably hadn't
impinged on your life. It will impinge eventually, expensively.
The deal is to fill in the $527 million deficit that will be left
by the end of the state's two-year budget (we're in Year One)
because the budgeteers guessed high on revenue and reality came in
low. Assembly Republicans and Senate Democrats, or their leaders,
worked out the deal Monday. It was before the Senate Tuesday, may
face the Assembly today, and Gov. Jim Doyle says he'll change it all
anyhow with his still-formidable veto.
As you'd guess, the state doesn't deal with tight times the way
you would. ...