This past May, the Missouri Legislature adopted a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 that was out of balance and over spent by at least $300 million. While their reasons for doing so are subject to speculation, I suspect they either didn't have the stomach to make the tough decisions needed to balance the budget, as required by the constitution, or they wanted to lay that burden on the shoulders of Gov. Jay Nixon.

Missouri, like most every state, faces a revenue shortfall of historic propositions. In Missouri, the problem is ongoing and becomes more difficult each year. Contrary to Post-Dispatch editorial "Passing the buck" (July 30), deciding where to make the deep cuts to balance the budget is "difficult" for the Legislature and for the governor.

While all departments have suffered significant reductions, the real large-dollar cuts can come from only a few areas of the budget: education, health, social services and corrections for example, simply because that's where the bulk of general revenue is spent.

The editorial took the governor to task for withholding $50 million from Access Missouri, for a net reduction of $20 million after the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority added $30 million. But the editorial did not offer any alternative as to what departments or programs should have been cut deeper to find the money to pay for Access Missouri scholarships. That's the issue critics can ignore but the governor can't. He's required to abide by the constitution and balance the budget.

Increasing taxes is an option for the Legislature to consider, but legislators have made it abundantly clear that's not going to happen anytime soon. The governor doesn't have the authority to raise taxes, but he does have some amount of power to increase revenue by curtailing or delaying tax credits, for which he hasn't received much support, even from Post-Dispatch editorial writers. Tax credits are an "off-budget" expenditure now approaching $700 million per year and include a significant amount of waste. That money could be used to reduce budget cuts, including those affecting the Access Missouri scholarships.

The unfortunate underfunding of the Access Missouri scholarships is not new news. The out-of-balance budget adopted by the Legislature was broadly covered by the news media. A month following adjournment, the governor announced detailed withholdings necessary to balance the budget, including the cuts to the scholarship funds. The information needed by the Department of Higher Education for the announcement of per-student allocations was not available until after the cutoff for new applications.

The recession's impact on Missouri's weak revenue system and poor tax policy causes much suffering and many unmet needs. Anyone who closely examines the deep cuts made these past two years, either by the Legislature or the governor, would conclude that they hurt real people and are not about cutting waste or fat from the budget. But please don't complain if you're not willing to offer a solution.

Wayne Goode of Pasadena Hills served in the Missouri House and Senate for 42 years before retiring in 2005.