I put a number on this one cause I’m willing to bet there will be more WTFs to come.

Now, normally I’d stay away from state and national issues. The mess just gets messier the higher up you go. But, for real, they let the government shut down for two hours!

I’d like to do a little flashback here. Think back to two years ago; 730 days ago; two state budgets ago. Do you remember what was going on? I’ll give you a hint: It’s exactly the same thing that’s happening right now! (Actually, the deficit was smaller and the government was shut down for four hours, but who’s counting, right? Obviously not anybody in Lansing.)

Anyway, point being that state legislators apparently can’t handle the responsibility that comes along with having to manage the kind of money they have to handle. And I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that they probably aren’t going to get any better at it, especially given that many of these ass-hats are going to be term-limited in a couple of years.

So, there are a couple of solutions here. Check Larry “I Can’t Shred” DeShazor. He’s floated the idea of maybe holding onto lawmakers’ paychecks if they can get their budgeting asses into gear by, say, May of each year.

Here’s my idea: Just get the state to stop paying for stuff. Cut welfare, cut prisons, cut DEQ, libraries, everything. Lump all that cash down into schools and revenue sharing. Then let the cities and counties and school districts deal with it all.