Gov. Olene Walker's budget is about what you would expect from a grandmother who has seen both good times and bad over her past quarter century in state government. Just because state revenues are up, she says, this is no time to go on a spending spree.

Nope, it's time to put a little something aside. Rebuild the rainy-day fund. That's her top priority.

She also would restore some of the muscle that was cut during the recent lean times. She would give employees who have gone without raises for several years a pay boost, fund all those kids who are flooding into the schools and hope that things continue to get better.

Sounds to us like a good, cautious plan.

Trouble is, this won't remain Walker's budget for long. She leaves the Kearns Mansion in a couple of weeks, and her budget will be subjected to the tender mercies of incoming Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and the Legislature.

Huntsman thinks he can find savings equal to 1 percent of the state's $8.6 billion total budget. But less than half of that total is discretionary state funds (the rest is federal and other revenues), and even many of those "discretionary" funds are restricted, so even a 1 percent cut would be a serious budget whack.

We wish him good luck with that. Saving money for the taxpayers always is a good idea. The hard part is finding the real inefficiencies. Talk is easy. Walking is more difficult.

Meanwhile, legislators reportedly are salivating at the possibility of cutting taxes. Again, that's a good sound bite. Everyone knows that Utah's taxes are high. But that's not because the state is full of tax-and-spend liberals, but because of Utah's taste for large families.

At the same time they want to cut taxes, lawmakers also want to build lots of roads, particularly in Utah County, and they are talking about diverting general-fund revenues to do that while still meeting demands for services in education, health, corrections and water. That would be neat trick, but it might require some Enron-style bookkeeping to pull it off.

Cooler heads would agree with Walker that now is the time to stand pat for a year and see whether the economy continues to grow. Goodness knows there are plenty of needs that went unfulfilled during the lean times.

She also has modest plans for initiatives to improve math performance for kids in the upper elementary grades, divert drug offenders from prison to treatment, reopen beds in the State Hospital, put a few bucks aside for land conservation, finish the Capitol restoration and rebuild the U.'s Marriott Library.

Good priorities all. We hope Huntsman and lawmakers listen.