There is something rather pathetic about the tortured dance that the state and its public worker unions have gone through in the face of the current budget crisis.

Clearly, the straightforward solution to the crunch would be to raise taxes enough to keep government services going at current levels. But a tax increase has been deemed politically impossible, at least by the Lingle administration.

So instead, the knife cuts into the state bureaucracy. The assumption, presumably, is that we — the taxpayers — are buying some services that might be nice to have but are not critically necessary.

Do we really need a separate film office, agricultural inspectors or Land Board specialists roaming around looking for engendered plants? Perhaps not. But someone, sometime, thought these were good ideas.

Whether such services are needed or important makes for an interesting debate. But they are not necessarily central to how we see ourselves as a society. But when it comes to state spending and budget cuts, there is judging by a tipping point: Education.

So, we face this question: Do we really need to have our public school teachers working five days a week throughout the school year? How much harm is done if they take a few Fridays off, now and then?

Apparently, judging from the reaction, quite a bit of harm will be done. Even as the state and the teachers' union work out the details of the "Friday-off" furlough system, alternatives are shaping up. In some cases parents are looking at paying out-of-pocket to keep classrooms open on those Fridays. This right away sets the stage for inequality as more affluent neighborhoods find ways to keep schools open while others go dark. Meanwhile, private and nonprofit groups are jumping up with their own programs.

And tellingly, the county governments — the Big Island for sure and likely Honolulu — will offer their own versions of Summer Fun programs for Failed Fridays.

Put it all together and you see something more than teacher furloughs; you see what amounts to a backdoor form of privatizing or decentralizing our educational system.

Essentially, what you end up with is subtle cost-shifting. The "savings" achieved by the state will by and large be taken up by others, either for altruistic reasons or for political gain. There really will be no true savings for the overall, whatever you wish to call it, gross national income of the state.

If we accept that state services, whether in education or in other areas, are what we want and are adequate for our needs, then we should agree to pay for them. If the economy is not producing enough tax income to sustain that level of service, then the proper response is either to abandon the service or raise taxes to cover the costs.

Any other solution is simply a form of denial.