A $13 billion-plus state budget is likely to win approval from legislators this week, but it's built on what seems a convenient fiction.
The apparent fiction is the notion that state revenues won't fall short of expectations again for the rest of the current fiscal year or the state's 2010 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Few, if any, legislators expect the state to have such good luck in the current economic climate.
If tax collections continue to fall as short of expectations as they did through February, the budget about to win approval fiscal 2010 won't balance, and legislators will be forced to revise it. If the state's finances get significantly worse, legislators might even have to revise the current budget, too.
God forbid, legislators would actually be realistic about their budget. Guess who will have to pay the bill if their dreams don't come true? That's right, us friends.
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