State budget decisions aren’t going to get any easier. Legislators might as well get on with them.

It’s time for the budget rubber to meet the road, and we’re not just talking about highway funding.

Monday morning, while legislators were getting a detailed briefing about state revenue estimates released on Friday, two Kansas House leaders were on a telephone conference call telling a group of editorial writers about their plans to turn lawmakers’ rhetoric into budget reality.

The strategy being planned by House Speaker Kent Glasscock and Appropriations Committee Chairman Kenny Wilk starts with identifying revenue sources that members are willing to tap. Then, using that revenue, Wilk’s committee will draw up a budget to match.

There is no expectation on the part of the legislative leaders that this will be an easy process. Although Glasscock predicted that the first budget that will come to the House floor “would be a pretty ugly budget,” he also contended, “It’s important for us to see what’s on the minds of members and where the votes are.”

Glasscock said the current budget crisis was “an unprecedented situation,” and estimates of budget shortfalls haven’t hit bottom yet. Following Friday’s report from the Consensus Estimating Group, secondary estimating groups will go to work on more specific issues this week. An education group will look at projections for local property tax revenue and school enrollments; a transportation group will look at income estimates from fuel taxes and registration fees; another group will draw up estimates on caseloads for the Social and Rehabilitation Services. It isn’t expected to be a pretty picture.

“Before this is done,” Glasscock said, “we’ll be well over $700 million (in the hole).”

Although the need to raise revenue to help offset some of the shortfall may seem obvious to many Kansans, it apparently isn’t a given in the Kansas House, where leaders said legislators seem to be waiting for someone else to blink. Wilk said, “I don’t think raising taxes should be easy,” but added that he thinks many Kansans are acknowledging the state needs “an adjustment in our fiscal policy,” which will include some tax increases.

For Glasscock and Wilk, that means it’s time for House members to step up to the plate. Unfortunately, the speaker expects a large number of House members to refuse to either raise taxes or cut budgets, an obviously impossible situation. If that occurs, Glasscock said, “I want to talk to these people and find out what they have in mind.”

What Glasscock has in mind is making people “match their speeches with their votes.” No one likes his plan to force choices on revenue increases and budget cuts, but it’s the only way he sees to make progress on a budget bill.

“What I want to do is identify the people in this chamber who are willing to govern,” he said.

It’s not an easy year for people who have been elected to govern the state. If Glasscock’s plan gets House members to rise to that task, then he will have done a great service for Kansas.