I say it every year, but I am soooo glad that Florida’s legislature only convenes for two months. Lord only knows what kind of mischief they could perpetrate if they were in Tallahassee any longer than that.

Already this year both the state house and senate passed separate “anti-evolution” bills that require teachers to apply “scientific critical analysis” when teaching evolution. It is, after all, just a theory. Like relativity. And gravity. That neither bill is likely to pass begs the question of why so many Florida lawmakers are so, er, unevolved.

But it’s the state’s budget mess where the bright lights of Florida government have shone their beams of brilliance most. Not to say they haven’t had a tough challenge to cut $4 billion (that’s with a B) from the state budget, but still, $160,000 for “alligator marketing and education?”

The biggest hit will be in education, with South Florida schools bearing the brunt of the reduction. Lawmakers slashed $2.3 billion (55 percent of the total budget cuts) from education, with $332 million coming out of Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Having had two kids pass through, uh — warehoused in — the Miami-Dade public school system, I don’t see where the cuts can come from, except incidentals like textbooks, new classroom construction and teachers.

But while they were busy gutting the education budget, Florida lawmakers did demonstrate some unexpected foresight. Seeing that the schools are just going to turn out a new generation of ignorant ruffians, the legislature allocated $305 million to build one private and two public prisons. By June 30, 2009, Florida is expected to have 107,000 miscreants incarcerated statewide. Oh, and that allocation is $10 million more than will be spent on school construction in the new budget.

”Our priorities are upside down and backwards,” said Rep. Joe Gibbons of Hallandale Beach. “There’s a direct correlation between failure in schools and numbers of people going to prison. We’re funding what we’re causing by not funding education. We’re not investing money on the front end. We’re just spending it on the back end.”

But not to worry, a whole bunch of Democrats like Gibbons plan to vote against the budget on principle. That’s encouraging, considering last year they voted against moving the state’s presidential primary date, and look where that got us.