After 135 days, Pennsylvania finally has a budget.

135 days. 20 weeks. Four and a half months. Nine-and-change fortnights.

Whatever unit of measurement you prefer, it’s too much.

And make no mistake: it will happen again. There’s no reason for it not to.

The Pennsylvania budget has been late repeatedly since 2003 — the first “budget impasse” as we think of them in today’s terms.

“Been late.”

The very concept is repugnant.

The state budget isn’t an overdue library book or a past-date school essay. Our political leaders aren’t careless children — or, if they are, they should be replaced with people who truly have the public interest at heart and are less interested in dramatizations that should have been left in high school cliques.

The budget is a cornerstone of our Commonwealth. The legislature must sign off on the planned uses of our collective income — taxes and other revenues, and the governor must propose and execute a vision that improves the lives of us all.

And, crucially, it must be done by June 30, according to the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Must. There’s that word again.

Another, similar word is frequently used around the budget: deadline.

Do you know the origin of the word, deadline? It was first used in 1864 to denote the point after which prisoners risked being shot if they continued, according to Merriam-Webster.

Yet, these words with all of their ultimate-sounding bluster somehow fail to convey their meaning to our elected officials.

As workers statewide joke at the watercooler every budget season, if any of us treated our deadlines like our elected officials do, we wouldn’t have jobs anymore.

But somehow, year after year, they get away with it — and, more than just getting away with it, they have convinced us, trained us to react with joy whenever they only barely miss the deadline by a few days.

It is, as of this writing, Nov. 13, and the budget was just signed yesterday.

We are thinking about turkeys and football and Christmas shopping and — shudder — snow.

Our lives, you see, go on whether we want them to or not. We cannot simply stop functioning for four months — and the word cannot is unfortunately binding, at least for our tax bracket.

There is a reason for the populist anger that various pundits — sometimes syndicated on this page — recognize and debate.

Our everyday existence demands a certain amount of competence. Our household budgets must be not only on time but also balanced, at least within the ability of our incomes to keep up with our costs of living.

One aspect of our American spirit of independence that we feel is somewhat under-discussed is the level to which, at a personal level, we are our own kingdoms (or queendoms).

We manage our own affairs — we are in command of how we use our time and how we spend our money; how we prioritize necessities and repairs; if we can afford fineries and luxuries; and so on.

This breeds within us all a certain level of collective contempt for people who cannot keep up.

When it comes to our fellow citizenry, that is unenviable. For them, we try react with empathy and compassion — we know how hard the struggle is, just to stay housed and clothed and fed and even remotely content, let alone happy.

But when it comes instead to our leaders, that decorum is rapidly diminishing like a patina rubbed too often.

Put another way, we-the-people simply do not have the patience for people in positions of power who waste our valuable time with pointless inanities.

Without being on the floor and knowing the ins and outs, of course, we cannot effectively diagnose who is contributing to the cause vs. who is contributing to the chaos.

There are 203 members of the Pennsylvania House, and we are sure that many of those individuals have the best interests of their constituents at heart.

And, in fairness, collaboration takes time and effort. But at some point, there must be consequences to failing to get the job done on time — or, if you prefer a more generous reading, at some point you have to let it go.

We have stories and design pieces for The Express that we could go on and on for. But, we have a deadline, and we have to get our job done on time.

If that means that sometimes things aren’t as perfect as we would like, then that’s just how it is.

We do not have the sense that our lawmakers are willing to accept imperfection for timeliness.

Lord knows that this budget is far from perfect, although every individual will look at it and have a different special interest or reason for why.

One such interest that jumped out immediately to us is a 3.1% decrease in state park operations and a 0.85% decrease for state forest operations — since we live in an outdoor-oriented region in the PA Wilds, this is something that we would prefer to be higher.

We would also point to the budget being a 4.7% increase with no new revenue sources as being another such imperfection.

Obviously, we could go on and on here. There is no perfect budget for all parties. But, as we were taught, you cannot let perfect be the enemy of good.

And, we would add, you cannot let good be the enemy of late.

Over the next few weeks, The Express will be looking out for stories from around the state and nation about the lingering, harmful effects of both the late budget in Pennsylvania and the 43-day federal government shutdown –the longest in history (yet).

Everyone suffers when needless wrangling continues on and on and on. And ultimately, we, the taxpayers, will suffer the most. Our elected officials, at the state and federal level, will always enjoy a soft landing.

But their actions have consequences for us. Perhaps their actions should have consequences for them.