CORRECTION (11/30/09): Gov. M. Jodi Rell allowed the state budget to pass into law without her signature. The editorial below, which incorrectly stated she signed the budget bill, has been corrected.

Connecticut lawmakers will be meeting at the state Capitol Dec. 15 and it's not for a holiday party.

Nor should it be.

Many members of the General Assembly deserve lumps of coal in their holiday stockings, nothing more.

Majority Democrats claim to understand the severity of the state's dire financial situation, yet repeatedly they have failed to offer substantive ideas to rein in the cost of government. We live in a new world and lawmakers need to accept that. The good old days are long over.

People are making less, many are jobless and those who do have jobs are under stress to be ever more productive. They've adjusted to no raises, and sometimes pay cuts, by reducing their personal budgets. They expect the same of government.

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell appears ready to make hard choices. Initially she underplayed the immensity of the state's burgeoning deficit, but no longer. She is fully aware of the precarious financial condition of Connecticut and is offering painful ideas to trim spending.

This week Gov. Rell suggested making an additional $337 million in cuts to the 2010 fiscal-year budget that began July 1, including a 3 percent decrease in state municipal aid. That hurts. If enacted, the reduction in aid to cities and towns will lead to fewer municipal services and, possibly, property tax increases.

Connecticut lawmakers exacerbated the problem. Rather than close the budget gap left over from last year, they agreed to borrow nearly $1 billion, precluding more borrowing now. And because Gov. Rell got the state's unions to agree to give-backs in exchange for a no-layoff provision for the next two years, any substantial cut to the state's work force is impossible until after 2011.

So the types of cuts that the governor is recommending, like less money to cities and towns, less for the state's poor and its sick and abandoning plans to cut the state's sales tax by a half a percent to 5.5 percent, will make already difficult times for many even harder.

Given that, lawmakers must come to the special session the governor has convened for Dec. 15 ready to do hard work. Name-calling and finger-pointing are useless. The state is facing a projected $466.5 million budget shortfall and needs to attend to it.

The budget approved by the General Assembly this past summer, which the governor allowed to become law without her signature, was a farce. Now it's time to deal with reality.  Happy holidays.