Budget Rant: Spitting Nails Edition

Last night I was out getting some school supplies we missed the first few times around. My sympathies to the mom who got to the store after me since I dug around and found the last folder with clasps inside. Tonight I have to write a note acknowledging that one of the kids turned in homework one day late.

The schools around here are very big on teaching kids responsibility early on. Late papers are a matter of concern and are often not accepted, depending on the teacher. Parents hear it over and over -- the kids have to learn to take school and homework seriously and turn things in on time.

Alas, the state legislature would get a giant F on this one. It's the end of September; the state budget ran out at the end of June, and in the intervening three months our state government has not been able to get their act together enough to come up with a new one.

There is, of course, what is being called the Frankenbudget, a hodge podge of bizarre revenue choices -- tax on cigarellos but not cigars or chewing tobacco, tax on museums and the arts but not on movies or sporting events (now, who paid for that stadium?). John Baer has a nice list of what's in the budget and what's not:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20090928_John_Baer__Baffled_by_the_state_budget_plan__Join_the_club.html

Tax gum, candy, soda, Marcellus Shale extraction, and all tobacco products. Just do it.

But to be perfectly honest, I know that eventually the state will pass a budget and the schools will start getting state funds again, along with other social services. There will be scars, many unnecessary. It's just that it's too late. This is the kids showing up with homework not just the next day or the next week but after the marking period is over.

Even if it were the most wonderful budget ever, it's just too late to matter. There's no excuse for it to have drug on for this long. Schools out, guys, you failed.