Better Very Late

than never:

"And after 7 1/2 months, some clearly conservative Republicans had come around to facing the facts.

"Yes, agreed a visibly moved Mary Gallegos, R-Cornelius, she had committed to oppose new taxes, 'but I also committed to support schools and services. I'm not going to support decimating schools and services because that's the only thing left.'

"And yes, it was.

"Besides the relief of a Legislature finally willing to face reality and responsibility, the most striking display of the afternoon was the number of representatives who--after 7 1/2 months--had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Repeatedly, legislators opposed to the budget offered angry but vague charges of inefficiency and wasteful spending--which they could, no doubt, have specified if the session were only a little longer. They ended up vowing, like melodrama villains, to be back, to beat the budget on referral and return the Legislature to Salem.

"What better ideas they'd have then, they didn't say.

"They were left to challenging the whole idea of government, as Ways and Means Committee co-chairman Randy Miller, R-Lake Oswego, wondered whether part-time courts were really worse than any kind of tax increase.

"Depends on whether you'd rather pay the state, or the guy breaking into your house..."