Get Off My Lawn, Confusion Edition

UPDATE: Significant content changes and editing. This was too sloppy even for me.

Hering's editorial from Friday is so strange I don't really know what's going on. Ostensibly, it's about the fact that Oregon has a two-year budget cycle and how that is confusing. However, there is so little opinion in this editorial I'm not even sure what Hering's point is - is it merely that the two-year thing is confusing to people? Really? That's it?

As far as I can tell, this is the entirety of the substance of his editorial:

Two-year budgeting has its upside. The main one is that you have to worry about it only every other year.

But it also has a steep downside: It confuses people, and not just residents in state correctional institutions.

He then goes on to hypothesize what life would be like if people used two-year cycles instead of one, presumably to illustrate how confusing it is.

I missed it the first time around, but that crack of Hering's could be construed as a shot at the prisoner who wrote it. I don't think it is, but given his history of sad ad hominem attacks, I would not be surprised.

I just have one objection, and that's this: The only 'argument' Hering presents for the two-year cycle is that - and I quote "you have to worry about it only every other year."

I am so, so tired of getting dumber when I read the editorials in the DH. Someone should really tell the publisher to give Hering days off that end in 'y'.

How about this? A two-year cycle means all the legislative wrangling and gridlock that happens is cut in half, freeing the Leg to work on other things. It allows for far more stability for state agencies who have to adjust to a constantly rising and falling budget as is, which is pretty important - and it allows, presumably, for more creative budget management since agencies and departments have a much larger pool of money to shuffle around. I came up with those literally as I was writing them, so you know I didn't exactly spend a lot of time on this one.

My point is simply that Hering makes no effort to point out why a two-year cycle is good, and instead spends his time forcing his readers to suffer through the most inane and banal writing I've seen since the last time I read his stuff. It's practically embarrassing, even for a Friday.