Baldacci hoping to broadcast budget tutorial on public access TV

Here's a great idea. So many people are complaing about the budget situation here in Maine, and i'm sure that most of them don't even understand the very basics of how a budget is put together and where the money goes. Gov. Baldacci has come up with a great idea, something that Bill Nemitz of the Portland Press Herald calls "Must see TV". I couldn't agree with him more. The goal of this program is to get more Mainers involved in the budget and to give them a true understanding of how it works. This is a win win situation for everyone.

Portland Press Herald / Mainetoday.com

Four years, ago, he introduced the "Budget Balancing Tool" on the state's Web site -- a high-tech opportunity for taxpayers to try their hand at balancing expenditures with revenues.
"Now," said Baldacci, " we're taking it up another step."
Granted, this baby is still "in development," as they say in TV land. But the goal is to produce a primer on the budget process and ship it out to public-access channels all over Maine in January.
That way, between grainy marathons showing your local town council or school board in action, you can sit back and let the governor walk you step-by-step through what most Mainers now call "that mess in Augusta."
Stifle that yawn. If you don't know the difference between "zero-based" and "baseline" budgeting, how can you possibly complain that state officials don't know what they're doing?
And if you're clueless about where the money's going -- 50 percent to education, 30 percent to health and human services and 20 percent to everything else -- where do you get off griping that your tax dollars are being wasted?
In other words, "The Budget Show" will be must-see TV.

Even Bill Becker, head of the Maine Heritage Policy Center sees this as a good idea. He of course has his take on how it shouldn't be an "informercial", but what do you expect.