I just got off the phone with Representative John Szoka (R-Cumberland). He is running unopposed, so I suppose it would be safe to say I sought him out for an explanation of changes to the state budget. Szoka used to do operations research for the Army. He’s good at math and statistics, he argues from facts with reason, and I’ve never picked up the slightest hint that he was being anything less than honest. So, yeah. I hung up the phone and a few minutes later I found an email announcing a JLF Spotlight talking about the same stuff. One of my favorite tidbits that I haven’t seen in the papers is the part about the legislators switching from a continuation budget, based on assumptions like bubbles never pop, to a base budget that assumes historical costs will provide a closer estimate of actuals.