Forget the theatre currently taking place on Jones Street. Most people who have been around state government for any time have come to the realization the budget that will be approved by the House Tuesday is little more than Act 1. They have peeked into this script and recognize this stanza ends when the Senate passes it’s budget (which we are told will be similar but with fewer cuts to the University system) and the two bodies compromise sometime in June and send a final document to the Governor. If the opening act seems familiar it is because we have seen a similar play that was set in Washington.

Don’t tarry getting back to your seats from intermission. Act 2 finds our Governor, who has been surprisingly silent in Act 1, with but days remaining before the July 1 starting date for the new budget, pulling out her red ink and slathering the budget with her veto. This is a short act that doesn’t take long.

The curtain for Act 3 rises immediately prior to July 1 with all the thespians (our politicians are acting more like actors) on stage pointing fingers and shouting that the impending crisis in state government is not their fault. The most obvious solution, a continuing resolution, is also problematic because neither the legislators nor the governor can find agreement. There is some debate backstage as to whether or not a continuing resolution is even required; most believe that without one state government will shut down. Some speculate this wouldn’t bother Republicans, especially the Tea Party faction, but most believe this would backfire on the GOP, much as it did with Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in Washington. One point on which all agree is that we cannot continue the spending plan currently in place because revenues won’t support these levels for long. If a CR is necessary and we cannot allow current spending levels what can be agreed upon?

Here is where I suspect the audience (you and I) will get involved and call a halt to this tragedy. We need a budget and we need these actors to compromise and come to some resolution. But what will happen if they haven’t done so by July 1? That is the real question being asked by political types?