Have you started thinking about what you want for Christmas yet? (I don't buy into that ultraliberal notion that not everybody celebrates Christmas).

Personally, my wish list looks like this: an ASM grocery store gift card, a 2007 Cubs World Series champions T-shirt and, last but not least, a finalized state budget. After all, state legislators have recently predicted that it might be as late as December before the budget is completed.

In light of these developments, it is high time this editor got in the fray local media have been drooling over for the past three months and busted some skulls over the budget. And sure, the issue is the deadest of dead horses, but hopefully with final blows to three utterly incompetent sects of government, I can get a grip on what all the fuss is about.

First, to Gov. Jim Doyle. In February, I sat in the Assembly chambers of the Capitol and witnessed firsthand his tragically inept budget address to state citizens and legislators alike. In his address, the governor had the nerve to target oil companies — some of which had just posted the largest quarterly earnings in the history of the U.S. economy — with a tax to curb bloated oil revenues and an attached stipulation that would not allow the companies to retaliate on the back end by raising prices at the pump.

The governor also decided that every child in Wisconsin deserves the right to affordable postsecondary education by proposing the Wisconsin Covenant. He had the ego to think that every citizen deserves health care by initiating Healthy Wisconsin, and he had the "pelotas" to call for UW System funding that would keep UW-Madison with the second-lowest tuition in the Big Ten. As if all of that wasn't enough, he even invited former UW All-American Joe Thomas into the chamber to be applauded for his academic and athletic achievements. The nerve.

As for the Assembly Republicans, they have hardly made the concessions necessary for a viable budget agreement. Just take a look at last week's decision by Assembly leadership to include the much-maligned $1.25 cigarette tax increase proposed by the governor.

When the tax was first introduced, Republican legislators went ape-shit about the negative effects it would have on Wisconsinites. Some cited a 2003 Small Business Survival Committee study that reported that New York City lost $127 million in profits for small businesses and some 10,000 jobs after a similar measure was taken by the local government.

They cried foul that the cigarette tax would wrongly target the majority of citizens who are privately insured, claiming they wouldn't see the other end of the tax revenue because their private insurance providers wouldn't benefit from them. And after all this, they conceded the bill into the budget last week. The nerve.

And finally, those damn Senate Democrats. After supporting and introducing Healthy Wisconsin into the budget, they decided to drop the largely implausible and infeasible social health care measure. The Democrats left out the plan, which would have more than doubled the size of the state government, as a true measure of political stubbornness. Needless to say — the nerve.

Or wait a second… all of the aforementioned measures, the ones that the local media have scorned and ridiculed for various reasons over the past three months, have actually promoted the completion of a state budget. Furthermore, all of the shame that our politicians are supposed to be feeling as the only elected officials in the country who have yet to finalize a budget, seems not to have sunk in. Peculiar, isn't it?

The sad reality is that as much as I want to lay blame on the incompetence of our elected officials for their budget failures, there aren't many failures to speak of.

Intense negotiation aimed at providing citizens a budget that best serves the needs of Wisconsinites is exactly what we elect our officials to do. The state government is, in fact, working exactly how it is supposed to — and therein lies the problem.

Almost 100 days after the budget was due, there is no penalty for politicians — directly or indirectly — for not passing a budget. In neighboring states such as Minnesota and Michigan, along with 21 other states in the country, a late budget means the government "shuts down," spelling out fiscal, and especially, political prices to pay.

Wisconsin, however, operates under a "continuation budget," which, for the most part, continues budget allocations to operate at the previous biennium's funding levels.

Therefore, there is little motivation to follow a budget timeline.

In the meantime, however, citizens are beginning to pay the consequences. Thousands of students are on financial aid waiting lists, road construction is being delayed or canceled and financial shortages are occurring for recipients of FamilyCare, SeniorCare and BadgerCare, among others.

At last, however, our legislators have just now taken notice that something isn't quite right. This week, Rep. Dean Kaufert, R-Neenah, and Rep. Louis Molepske, D-Stevens Point, with the support of the governor, introduced legislation that would put an end to our unique brand of legislative indolence. The legislation would require the governor, Assembly and Senate all to make concrete budget deadlines for the following biennium, which if not met, would result in the government ostensibly shutting down and legislators being deferred salary until a budget is passed.

Indeed, Wisconsinites should have had a budget by the middle of summer, and it is ludicrous to think that we might not have one before Christmas. But it is long overdue that the popular media look deeper into the issue and demand a change not from current legislators, but from current legislation.

Andy Granias ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science and legal studies.