About four years ago, when I was publisher of the Blue Mountain News, I interviewed State Representative Terry Nealey as he was preparing to start the 2011 legislative session. The economy was in the dumps then, and the state government was facing a reduction of more than $1 billion in tax revenues compared to the year before, along with a huge budget deficit.

Here’s what Nealey had to say about that in December 2010:

“In 2007 the state had a $2 billion surplus, and the Democrats passed a bunch of new programs that used that up. I know no one could have predicted the extent of the econo...