It's like the night before that holiday

Anticipation runs high today, as we're about to see the governor's budget proposals. "Ugly" is a frequently used adjective here, but since very few people seem to know what exactly is going on, I guess we'll just wait to see what $5 billion in reductions look like before judging.

Clearly, writing these has been a push. The Department of Social and Health Services just barely finished writing its reduced budget for this fiscal year, to say nothing of the next two. I was told yesterday that the plan for Fiscal Year 2009 in DSHS -- $181 million in cuts -- will be rolled into this proposal.