Pressure Makes Diamonds

That might be the idea some representatives in the house had in their heads this week as they finally decided on a bill to pass onto the senate. With five months left in the fiscal year, the house of representatives passed a bill onto the senate to allow the state to coast along and survive the fiscal year with a balanced budget. With such a large budget to cut and shot over so far, how could this not have been seen earlier, and how come it could not be handled quicker? It's as if the House knew decisions had to be made and were dragging their heels on the subject matter. Of course, twenty three billion dollars is no easy feat to try and cut corners, save some nickels and lay off hundreds of state workers. Even though the House of representatives have decided on a bill, HB4, that does not mean that it's taken care of. The bill is now sent on to the Senate to go under more debate. The Senate has some different options on how much to spend, a good extra 10 billion dollars. Also, the Senate isn't as opposed to tapping into the Rainy Day Fund that the republicans in the house were so quickly to oppose as well when the democrats proposed the idea. The senate will now decide how this bill they want to change if at all. They've already been working up their own version of the same bill, cutting state funded revenues to many state institutions, education, etc. Once the senate has their version revised, again the house of representatives will get their prompt, diligent hands on it. How long can we draw out a 23 billion dollar, time-sensitive matter? This budget deficit can easily be compared to a disease, a virus, if you would have gotten it checked out, treated early, you could have saved yourself a lot of pain. Again, this is a 23 billion dollar matter. I don't expect something of this magnitude to be resolved over a luncheon, but if you know you have so many more steps before the bill can be passed, punch the clock and get to work. Newspapers have to get the news printed by a certain time in the morning, the U.S. Postal Service has to work within time constraints, even the pizza boy has to have your hot pie at your doorstep within thirty minutes, why then, are politicians exempt?