Opinion: Get the budget done! After we get back from D.C.!

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Most of the state’s legislative Democrats stayed away from the Democratic National Convention in Denver last August, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stayed away from the GOP counterpart in Minnesota. Because, after all, they were more than two months late on adopting a budget, so it would have been irresponsible to leave the state until that work was done.

So of course, now that the budget they finally passed has fallen billions of dollars out of balance, and they’re all back in the exact same position they were in last summer, they’re going to have to let the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama go on without them. Right? Ha. They’re going to Washington -- Schwarzenegger, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, new Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

Perhaps there’s a point at which a California budget is so late and the gap is so huge that it’s no longer a crisis, it’s just doom, and there’s nothing to be done about it. Or maybe they’re hoping to catch the new president’s eye during the parade or one of the parties and hit him up for a few billion dollars. Or -- this is my final try -- maybe this is an ‘off-site’ for the three of them, allowing them to get away from Sacramento and brainstorm about the future.