Gov. Brad Henry has a beef with state legislators over their proposed budget, and his beef appears petty and misdirected.

Henry vetoed Wednesday $6.8 billion of the Legislature’s $6.9 billion general appropriations bill, calling its formation “flawed.” Henry has complained for the last few days that he did not have input into the bill, and that it’s too early in the session to come up with a spending budget.

Did the governor wake up this past week and suddenly discover that the Legislature has been meeting for two months? If the governor wanted to negotiate state spending, why didn’t he have his advisers meeting with legislators? And if they were shut out, why didn’t he say something sooner? Read more…