"Solon" is a headline writer's word for a member of the legislature. It gets used because it's shorter than "legislator." It was the name of the ancient Greek statesman who framed the democratic laws of Athens. Headlines being what they are, this noble lineage often is lost when the word gets put to practical use, as in: "Solons make hash of Ohio budget."

Personally, I think we'd be doing the readers a favor with a little more plainspeak. Something like: "Idiots on the loose in statehouse." Now that's the kind of headline that would draw readers into a story about legislators who would rather cut the future out of the state than make sensible compromises or engage in some long-term planning.

It is idiotic for a state struggling to shake off the constrictions of the rust belt to refuse to raise taxes on liquor and cigarettes, and instead balance its budget by slashing $140 million from education. Way to go solons! We can get by with fewer teachers, but don'tcha dare jack up the price of my Camels and beer.

This is the same state that has just been through years of litigation over the way it shortchanges its children in school funding. It's the same state that talks about becoming a center of technology based on research done at its universities. It's the same state that bemoans the "brain drain" of its brightest high school students to better college opportunities elsewhere.

So why did the legislators force a budget cut that will take a $16.5 million slice out of Cincinnati Public Schools and will leave a lot of state universities thinking about mid-year tuition hikes? Like I said, these folks are real solons.

Actually, it won't just be schools and teachers who get hurt in this cut. Gov. Bob Taft said he was slicing $1.8 million out of the Passport budget too. Passport is a Medicaid-funded program that helps older folks stay in their own homes by providing visiting nursing care for the infirm. The cut means 150 fewer people will get to sign up for it each month between now and June 30. Passport is a relatively small piece of Ohio's huge Medicaid budget, but it's a piece the governor can cut without permission from the General Assembly. Nursing homes, which get about 40 percent of the Medicaid pie, also get a guaranteed 6.2 percent increase this year, thanks to a legislative mandate.

The governor said he plans to save some more money this budget year by keeping 712 people out of addiction treatment, and ceding the creation of about 500 new jobs to other states.

Ohio's constitution, like almost every other state's constitution, says the governor must balance the budget. Lots of people, including Tim Hagan, the guy Taft thumped in last fall's election, had been saying for a long time that Ohio has been heading for a fiscal train wreck. Taft never denied it, but he didn't run around saying he would raise taxes, which is one big reason why he, and not Hagan, won the election. But in early January, Taft started saying the obvious: revenues were down, the state's economy was moving like a turtle, and the current budget would have a $720 million deficit by June 30. (The next biennium looks even worse, by the way, with a projected deficit as high as $4 billion, but let's stick to the immediate crisis).

Taft proposed some cuts, as well as hiking the taxes on booze and smokes. The Republican-dominated General Assembly said no. The governor said if they had a better idea, he'd be pleased to hear it; otherwise he'd have to take an axe to the schools to meet his constitutional obligation.

The legislature then passed a budget bill that left the deficit at $143 million, and dared the governor to make good on his threat. On Wednesday he did.

A lot of the legislators engaged in wishful thinking. Rep. Gary Cates, R-West Chester, the second-ranking member of the House, said they wanted to wait until mid-April to see if revenues would go up to the point where tax hikes or budget cuts wouldn't be needed. They would have had a better shot at balancing the budget by buying lottery tickets.

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Contact David Wells at 768-8310; fax: 768-8610; e-mail: dwells@enquirer.com. Cincinnati.Com keyword: Wells.