YOU'D THINK THAT WITH two weeks of debate -- and counting -- the Senate must be doing some major surgery on the budget, perhaps finally finding programs and entire agencies to eliminate.

You'd be wrong. For two weeks, the Senate has been playing partisan games and engaging in petty bickering. Democrats and Republicans alike seem focused on scoring political points -- trying to back the other guys into casting votes that can be taken out of context and used against them in the next election -- rather than trying to come up with a way to meet the state's needs.

Such behavior, unacceptable any time, is all the worse now because it obscures the larger problem: Senators, like representatives, are unwilling to own up to the state's deepening fiscal crisis. Just about everybody rightly condemns the House's insufficient spending on education, but no one has put forward a serious plan for fixing it. Democrats have proposed tax increases that are unreasonably high, and Republicans have backed away from their own alternatives. In large part because of this divisive partisanship, senators have even rejected the partial solution that had at one point seemed sure to sail through.

On Thursday, Democrats and Republicans did start trying to talk to each other and resolve the impasse. We hope they will continue that dialogue Monday. But simply getting along isn't enough. Senators must address the very real needs of our state.

The current Senate version of the budget, like the version passed by the House, falls far short of that goal. It will set education funding -- and with it the improvements we have begun to see in education -- back a quarter century. It will reduce state spending on Medicaid, thereby slashing the amount of matching money we receive from the federal government -- a move that will result in higher medical costs for the rest of us as hospitals, forced to treat the indigent, pass the costs to our insurance companies. It will make it impossible for our prisons to offer any rehabilitative services to the inmates who will eventually walk the streets again, and even make it impossible to adequately guard those inmates -- which may well result in riots and escapes. It will reduce our already inadequate police forces, making our highways and communities less safe. It will render the Department of Mental Health unable to treat people who pose a danger to themselves and others -- resulting in human tragedy and, as with the Medicaid cuts, a cost-shift to our insurance policies as hospitals are forced to take over the care.

Some lawmakers argue that families are having to make do with less money because of the economy, and so the state should also. That's a valid argument. But what gets left out is a look at how families make do. They don't reduce the amount of money they pay on the mortgage and the electricity bill and medical insurance. They cut out the cable TV or dinner out; they buy store brands. In short, they eliminate nonessential spending so they can pay those bills that simply must be paid. And if that doesn't work, somebody gets a second job.

Those are the facts lawmakers must face. The way out of this mess remains as simple, and as difficult, as it has been all year: The Legislature must either make targeted cuts that eliminate non-essential items while allowing the state to meet its obligations in essential areas, or it must raise taxes. There are no other options.