From yesterday’s Mobile Register (it wasn’t online when I checked yesterday morning:

(BTW, I hate the title, but I didn’t write it (never do–well, I do, but they always ignore it))

On one level, budgeting sounds like perhaps the most boring aspect of government, being as it is about complex documents and accounting issues. Further, many people seem to think that it is a wholly administrative function.

Nevertheless, setting the budget is the heart of governing, just as it is in business. Organizations rely upon income to fund what they do, and the state’s budgets are the political alchemy that converts tax dollars into public policy.

The entire piece is here.