There's not enough money in the budget.

What budget, you ask? Does it matter? Whether you're talking about nations, states or films, there never seems to be enough money to do the things we'd like to (like digitally imbue Orlando Bloom with onscreen charisma) or fund the things we need (adequate schools, housing, roads, health insurance, the list goes on). And frankly, that's because there isn't.

That occurred to me before sitting down Wednesday afternoon with Joe Lowe, Amador County's patient auditor-controller. Spotting on his cluttered desk an old school printing calculator with its crumpled tape already showing signs of hardcore number crunching, I knew Lowe was the one to make sense out of this annual tradition of stretching property and sales tax dollars across dozens of hungry programming mouths.

This year was proving a little more difficult, Lowe said, in part because of some general fund bills coming due, most notably $1.67 million in capital improvement projects, $360,000 to fund the general plan update and $500,000 to continue fighting two proposed casino projects. Lawyers don't come cheap, after all. Especially when you have a governor who's basing a significant portion of next year's projected income on yet-to-be-realized gaming facilities in Southern California.

That logic doesn't play here, even with dilapidated buildings like the county museum and Ione library, which arguably has more mice than it does patrons. The museum especially has motivated a small but vocal segment of Amador residents to clamor over an old, leaky roof and perceived neglect on the part of a county that dipped into its reserves for a new administration center. Personally, I can't quibble too much with the prioritizing of the county's headquarters over a paean to its history, but I half hope the repairs get done just so we can stop filing the same story over and over.

Maybe a stop at the museum would have been in order, however, as I was looking for some historical context to this year's budget dance, which had shown signs of being a notably tough one. Or, as Lowe said when I asked whether more money is coming in than is expected to go out next fiscal year, "It is, but it's barely making it."

A final budget isn't expected until around August, but the recommended price tag for 2007-08 is $72.9 million, less than the $73.36 million required last year and even less than the $79.4 million the year before. (Those figures are a far leap from the quaint $1.1 million in total budget requirements recorded half a century ago.)

Some of that is due to a housing market that has yet to recover following three straight years of double digit increases. The fact that applications for county building and remodeling permits have been down all this year indicate the recovery may still be a little ways off, Lowe said.

At least we're not alone.

Every year around this time is like the home version of "Sophie's Choice." Worthy causes abound. The capital to invest in them, however, does not.

There was a clear example of that earlier this year when the state ran through the first wave of Proposition 1B monies quicker than expected. Large metropolitan and smaller rural communities were both clamoring from some congestion relief, and transportation officials discovered $4.5 billion doesn't stretch as far as you'd think.

The $103.8 billion proposed in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's May budget revision seems like it would be more than enough to cover the costs of running the most populous state in the nation. Then again, I got a C in statistics.

Lawmakers, legislative advocates and other talking heads continue to beat their chests over pork barrel earmarks and underfunded programs. Where's the money for an overburdened foster care program, they ask, or the funds for proper flood protection? It's tempting to say there's only so much to go around, but is that true? State and federal governments have notorious reputations for wasteful spending and mismanaged finances. This isn't the private sector. How much of our fiscal crises are due simply to not getting the bang out of our bucks?

When you look at programs like Planned Parenthood and neighborhood health clinics that could get nine matching federal dollars for each state dollar spent, according to former state Assemblywoman Hannah Beth-Jackson, it makes you wonder how carefully we're investing with this budget.

Meanwhile, groups like Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California, a bipartisan coalition of state law enforcement officials that would like money for more preventative and juvenile outreach programs, will continue clamoring for a little more vision.

Like universal health care, like clean energy and like progressive immigration policies, the organization's proponents say the upfront costs of funding their programs are offset by eventual savings in other areas. So it's not just a moral victory keeping kids from becoming juvenile offenders, it's a financial one.