Word coming in from the State House about the Governor’s new budget, and there’s one mildly disturbing fact that stands out among the others: Douglas’s budget fails to provide funding for the November election. Seriously.

Rather than funding an election this cycle, Governor Douglas will travel the state handing out “wicked big” checks to random individual voters.

Every two years money is added to the budget, through the Secretary of State’s office, to underwrite the state-wide election. Estimated price tag for 2008? A cool $450,000.

But not a cent budgeted in the Governor’s new master plan.

Our source goes on to say: “The official response is that we will have to deal with this in next year’s budget adjustment. This assumes, though, that there will be money in budget adjustment next year. Given declining revenues, no money for pay act, aggressive savings targets from cutting positions, and Medicaid, it is likely that there will not be any money for budget adjustment next year. In fact budget adjustment may need to be used for recissions.”

Ah, yes. Suddenly the Affordability Agenda makes a whole new kind of sense.