That’s it?

That’s the budget that was supposed to transform Maine into – depending on your political orientation – either a business friendly, job-creating, profit-making paradise of free-market capitalism – or an environmental wasteland in which impoverished workers seek shelter while being urinated on by corporate swine?

In truth, Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s first biennial (a fancy word meaning both occurring every two years and going on a two-year fast) budget is a long way from those descriptions. It’s so distant from the hopes of his most ardent right-wing supporters and the fears of his most voracious left-wing critics that any fair-minded observer would have no alternative but to call it that adjective most reviled by all extremists:

Moderate.

Sure, state employees and retired public workers will take a little hit. A few immigrants won’t get welfare, while legal residents may not get as much, and some poor folks will discover there’s a definite end date to their time on the dole. The State Planning Office may gradually disappear. There aren’t any bond issues for public land or fixing roads, or research and development. And the tax cuts LePage talked about throughout his gubernatorial campaign turned out to be modest, less than a fifth of the billion dollars he promised.

Which brings to mind another term despised by arch-conservatives and ultra-liberals:

Realistic.

LePage – who claimed in speeches that his spending plan wasn’t going to be “business as usual,” who warned in an interview with the MaineToday Media newspapers that it would be “difficult” and “painful,” who claimed in his budget address that if the state was a private business, it would be bankrupt – has produced a document that will have a barely noticeable impact on most Maine households (the governor’s income-tax cut will save the average worker about three bucks a week, and I doubt that worker will miss the State Planning Office much).

LePage had originally promised to employ “zero-based budgeting,” a fancy name for a process that says that just because a state agency got money last year, it isn’t necessarily entitled to any this time around. But there was no time in the five weeks between his inauguration and the due date for the new fiscal plan to undertake such a dramatic and time-consuming approach.

LePage pledged Maine would have a smaller government, but, because of that looming budget deadline, there was little opportunity to sort out which programs should get the ax.

LePage insisted in a Feb. 10 interview with the Morning Sentinel that, “after the next biennium, we will have a good foothold on solving the problems in the state of Maine.” But the tight timeframe meant that all he could really accomplish in the short term was to keep the place operating much as it always had.

At least 90 percent of this proposal looks like it could have been drafted by (gasp) Democrats.

Obviously, it’s unreasonable to expect a brand-new governor, particularly one inexperienced in the complicated budget process, to come up with a polished product that makes major policy changes on such short notice. But that’s what state law requires. And as with many such requirements, there’s a word to describe that:

Stupid.

For years, former state Rep. Henry Joy of Crystal attempted to convince his colleagues that forcing an incoming governor to make either hasty, ill-advised decisions on spending or fall back on doing the same things the last chief executive had done, regardless of changed economic or political circumstances, was a dopey way to develop a spending plan. But Joy was a member of the GOP minority in a Legislature dominated by Democrats, so his sensible proposal to have the budget begin in the second year of a governor’s term went nowhere. Even among his own caucus, Joy had a reputation as a maverick (he introduced bills to split Maine into two states, to seize all federal property in the state, and to require hikers, canoeists and kayakers to purchase outdoor recreation licenses), so Republicans didn’t flock to his cause, either.

Probably too busy working on a bill designating the whoopie pie the official state “treat.”

Joy is gone from the Legislature (the guy, not the emotion), but GOP state Rep. Bernard Ayotte of Caswell Plantation has picked up his idea, gently removed its crusty coating of wackiness and the sticky strands of eccentricity, and presented it anew. This time around, not only are Republicans fired up about the change, but LePage himself is said to be in support. So, this could be the last year a novice governor has to craft his or her initial budget on the fly, which means future administrations’ first spending plans will more accurately reflect their political views.

Which should please those extremists who had hoped for a more radical budget. And terrify those who feared the same.

Not to mention giving me something to write about in the governor’s second year. In the meantime, if you have suggestions, e-mail aldiamon@herniahill.net.