I see on the Talk Business site that Sen. Bill Pritchard, Republican of Elkins, wants to swap out the new annual sessions to have the budget sessions in the usual odd years and the regular full sessions in the new even years.

He says legislators aren’t ready to come in as rookies and do a full session. Presumably, he thinks they’ll be ready instantly to do a budget of several billion dollars setting state government policy from highways to education to health care.

This is the problem with some views, particularly, I must say, of Republicans, about government. They think budgets aren’t the most important thing.

Years ago, a then-leading state senator, named Beebe, called me and said I wasn’t going to believe what he was getting ready to tell me. But a couple of religious right-wingers of a Republican persuasion had passed on opportunities to go on the Joint Budget Committee because they wanted to cling to other committees where they could push abortion bills and stuff. They didn’t want to bother themselves with the nuts and bolts of government.

So now Pritchard wants to reverse the new annual sessions so these incessant rookies of the term limits area can learn their way around before they try to push their social agendae. He wants them to do the easy budgeting of billions right off the bat, to get that little business out of the way.

Whatever.