Simple ways to close the state budget gap dismissed

Way back in the day, when I was in high school, I had a summer job of mopping floors at a local hospital.

Being a janitor was a really satisfying job because when you were done, you could easily see what you had accomplished, unlike a lot of other occupations.

Anyway, one of my compatriots on the broom was a guy named Howard Johnson. Howard was as big as an actual Howard Johnson's and he had an axiom for work: "the simplest way is the best way."

As I recently watched the Nebraska Legislature struggle with closing a multi-million dollar hole in the state budget, I kept thinking of Howard's advi...