Calling for more consolidation and less waste, Gov. Mitt Romney primarily discussed budgetary issues in his State of the State address yesterday. The economic focus was wise considering the current economic situation and need to explain the budget plan that he will release today. Romney also made smart, reasonable suggestions, though he glossed over issues pertaining to the arts.

For state colleges, Romney proposed that the state’s 29 colleges share accounting, purchasing, information technology and other administrative functions to reduce duplication of efforts. This will also reduce duplicated work for applicants by allowing them to use the same application for as many schools as they wish. Romney proposed similar coordination for the court system, health services and other parts of the government bureaucracy, saying this “Common Sense for the Commonwealth” plan will eliminate $2 billion of waste and inefficiency.

Romney also proposed some cuts to programs but wisely said veteran’s benefits, welfare payments, child care, and homeless shelters will avoid the ax. Other savings in his plan will come from requiring everyone to pay a small amount for health care and using performance rather than seniority to promote government employees, which will create revenue and help the state operate better. Though a considerable number of civil servants will get pink slips, they are well positioned to find new jobs and streamlining is necessary.

The final major component of Romney’s plan involved reducing local aid by 5 percent. Although this can be counterproductive if cities raise taxes to compensate, ideally it will spur municipalities to find similar inefficiencies in their own governments to offset the costs. As Romney realized, these cuts should affect poor communities less and hit wealthier ones harder.

These plans make sense as long as they do not significantly reduce what citizens actually get from their government. Streamlining should allow the government to serve the same functions at much less cost, and is a much wiser — and more popular — way to balance the budget without raising taxes.

For all the sensible and straightforward ideas Romney presented, he did not mention the arts once. They have faced budget cuts as well but remain an important part of society worth funding. Provided that Romney ommitted discussion of the arts merely because their funding will not change, his budget plan uses intelligent ways to reduce expenses. Romney ran on his business acumen, and is now putting Massachusetts’ money where his mouth is.