John Hood fess’s up. In his daily column, John explains that he incorrectly predicted that the legislature would conclude its business — specifically, its budget business — by the end of July. The new fiscal year started on July 1 after all.

The legislature is still in session without an end in sight. Read his column here for more background on the ins and outs of the debate.

John concludes with the following idea about our lawmakers and their poor incentives for timely decisionmaking: “they get paid more the longer they procrastinate. That should cease.”

It certainly should cease. And, citizens should go one better. After a “hard, fixed” schedule is approved for the legislature, lawmakers should a) not be able to collect the per diem and travel expenses associated with being in the extra sessions but should also, b) pay a fine for each day that the legislature is in session beyond the predetermined conclusion. Just for argument’s sake, I suspect it would have a clarifying effect on the negotiations if each and every legislator was liable for $100 per day that the legislature exceeded the deadline.

We need incentives for good behavior — like paying legislators for their time and energy devoted to making laws and exercising oversight of the other branches of government — as well as disincentives for bad behavior. Since many public officials cannot be shamed into passing a budget, we should dock their pay for being late.

By analogy, if John Hood agrees to deliver a piece of work to me and I promise to pay him $10 for delivery of a finished product by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, it is reasonable that we could agree beforehand that for every hour after 9:00 a.m. that it takes for him to finish the project he will have to pay a $1 penalty.