The ‘Less Bad Budget’ Principle: With luck, the conference committee will discover fiscal responsibility

The Senate fiscal year 2007-08 budget would have spent $1.3 billion (7.1 percent) more on operations than the previous year, plus another $1.2 billion in new debt.

The Senate would have allowed the 8.0 percent personal income tax bracket and the extra quarter-cent sales tax to expire as current law requires.