USED TO BE, IT WAS A routine matter for legislators to finish up the bulk of their work on the first Thursday in June, go home for a week or two and come back for a few days to wrap up loose ends. It gave conference committees a chance to get the distance and perspective needed to complete final negotiations, and it gave legislators an opportunity to either sustain or override vetoes of bills they didn't send the governor until the last week of the session.

Occasionally, there would be problems, when the House and Senate tried to engage in brinkmanship and use the resolution authorizing the extended session as a lever to get concessions from the other body on this or that matter. A few years ago, this little game blew up in their faces, and they had to go begging the governor to call a special session to let them finish their work.

But unless they finished their work extra early (a rare occurrence), no one ever questioned the need for this routine procedure. But all that changed a couple of years ago, when our legislators decided they needed role models, and they found them in .‘.‘. the Congress.

That's the place where you make up issues to try to make your opponents look bad, figuring the public is too stupid to realize you're just making up issues.

So now we have a new annual game. This year's version: Democrats demand that Republicans not authorize a routine wrap-up session. They shout that Republicans are in control of the House and the Senate and the governor's office, and that their "mismanagement and failure to timely complete the work has resulted in the need for more legislative time." And the Republicans try to shut them up by rushing through the final work on a very bad spending plan.

One thing's for certain: There's been plenty of mismanagement of time and ideas -- on the part of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Another thing's for certain: The only thing worse than what has happened so far during this legislative session is what would happen if lawmakers approve the damaging budget that they say is the best they can do -- but which is far from the best they can do.

Yes, it takes money for the Legislature to come back to work for an extra few days: up to $25,000 a day -- just like a regular session day. And yes, we could make ourselves feel better by saying we spent that on teachers or Medicaid or Highway Patrol troopers or whatever you'd like to suggest. But it takes some money to make government decisions, much as it takes some money to make business decisions. And the money it takes to run our Legislature is relatively small -- about a half a percent of the total state budget. Bad legislative decisions -- decisions made because legislators are racing the clock to make a point -- cost us a lot more than that.

Although we're not convinced, there's a legitimate argument to be made that the legislative session should be shortened. But that's a decision you make in advance. Simply calling "time" when everybody expected an extra week to finish their work is counterproductive.

Lawmakers shouldn't settle for a budget that sets education back a quarter century, that endangers our safety through understaffed prisons and police agencies, that puts dangerously mentally ill people out on the streets untreated. They should demand better. They should take advantage of the perspective they can get from a few days away from the State House. Then they should come back and do better.