One hundred days have passed since the constitutional deadline for Pennsylvania to have a 2009-10 budget in place.

One hundred days have passed since the partisan swamp that is the Pennsylvania General Assembly relegated the people and agencies that depend on state money to an uncertain existence.

In those 100 days, state lawmakers and a governor who have touted their determination to work on behalf of the people have done just the opposite, with important services having had to lay off workers or curtail or suspend operations.

In those 100 days, state residents have been dealt enough useless rhetoric to challenge the patience of even the most avid reader or viewer.

One hundred days, and nothing concrete to show for state leaders' purported efforts.

One hundred days, with real, comprehensive compromise still hovering outside the realm of the possible.

This poor excuse for responsible government is not what state voters bargained for when they cast their ballots during the 2008 legislative elections. It wasn't what the voters bargained for when they spared the legislative careers of many lawmakers with whom they were angry in the aftermath of the unconscionable, middle-of-the-night 2005 pay-raise vote that ultimately was repealed.

That 2005 vote resulted in the ouster of some longtime legislators during the 2006 balloting. The current budget debacle is grounds for many more to be ousted next year.

It's long past due for Pennsylvania government to make a real effort at being a reasonably efficient legislative body. It's long past due for individual lawmakers to be given free rein to vote in the way they think is correct, regardless of party affiliation, and without their votes being dictated or bullied with a threat of losing WAMs (Walking Around Money) by party leaders.

If the partisan bosses weren't running the show, it's reasonable to think that a budget could have been fashioned before the budget deadline.

Anyone who thinks next year's gubernatorial election hasn't impacted the budget process is naive. Republicans are trying to make Democrats look bad and vice versa.

What both sides haven't factored in is how bad both parties have looked amid the long-term uncertainty and frustration.

To think any lawmaker was stupid enough to anticipate that there would be support statewide for taxing small games of chance operated by entities such as volunteer fire departments is further evidence of how shortsighted Pennsylvania state government has become. At least lawmakers came to their senses on that issue and dropped the idea.

And weeks have passed since Pennsylvania began to carry the dubious distinction of being the only state in the nation to have not passed a budget for the new fiscal year, which isn't very new anymore.

On Thursday there was some verbal optimism being tossed about by some lawmakers, including state Sen. Jane Orie, R-40th, that passage of a new budget was close at hand.

But the likelihood remained that, even if a budget purportedly were passed, that that budget would not be a complete spending package. How could it be if final decisions remained regarding casino table games licensing fees and those games' tax rate?

As of Thursday, there was a huge chasm of disagreement over what the casinos believed to be fair expectations — license fees of $10 million and a 12 percent tax rate — compared with what some lawmakers have said they favored — $20 million license fees and a tax rate of up to 34 percent.

Without final decisions on those issues, plugging real numbers into a budget cannot be done.

One hundred days — 2,400 hours, 144,000 minutes, and 8,640,000 seconds — without a budget, and Keystone State lawmakers still believe they deserve their pay and benefits.

What most really deserve is shortened legislative careers — the dictators responsible for the morass and the hardships the budget impasse has caused, and those rank-and-file lawmakers who touted themselves as having great leadership skills at election time but proved to be anything but leaders in this unnecessarily prolonged budget exercise.

Fortunately lawmakers in the 49 other states, faced with similar economic circumstances, were more responsible to the people they serve than Pennsylvania's excessively paid, excessively "fringe benefited" underachievers.

At this late stage, Pennsylvania residents have cause to be suspicious about whatever budget document finally is handed to them.