As the state Legislature gears up for another exciting session in Olympia, our recently elected Kitsap County officials will likely be joining others in some serious head scratching.

Filling a $2 billion budgetary hole will be about as easy as finding a good Barbara Streisand movie. The state’s in a crisis situation — make no mistake of that.

Next year, we get a wake up call on the wrong side of the bed and a lot of people will point to Tim Eyman and Referendum 51 as the reason. Transportation is just the tip of the iceberg but for most, it represents something tangible and something almost everyone relies on daily.

Even so, there is no solution in sight. Even supporters of R-51 will admit the proposal wasn’t the “answer” to the local and statewide dilemma. So what is?

Ever been to Idaho?

It has some of the worst roads in the western United States. Potholes are so numerous that one might think the population there planted and dug up its “Famous Potatoes” right out of the highway system. We’re driving down the same one-way road and there isn’t an exit in sight.

Gas taxes. Political pledges. Truckloads of money. New jobs. Nothing is going to catch our runaway bus. Olympia is not going to be a very popular place this year.

Eyman might have gotten the ball rolling but the voters have supported his idiocy time and time again. At the same time they downed R-51 — which would have at least slowed the budget bus before it went careening off some mountain cliff.

Now we’re in for it. Local governments are tightening their belts. Counties are doing the same and the state has a problem so complicated it would have Albert Einstein pulling out his unkempt hair.

The real tragedy isn’t even the infrastructure. It gets worse?

It does if your child is being educated in the public school system or if your parent is on Medicaid. When the state knife falls, programs that help our young and our old will be the first to feel the stab.

Even Joe Camel can’t blow enough diversionary smoke to get us out of this one. There is no big tobacco settlement in the wings ready to swoop down and save the state.

So, plan on tough times these next few years — at least. Grandpa and grandma might be moving home for awhile and junior will likely need a lot more help with his math but we should get through this eventually.

Those folks in Olympia might have some tricks up their sleeves yet. Most likely they’ll rhyme with “axes.”