We agree with one assessment of our state budget The Center Square reported on in Tuesday’s edition: The cost of the new budget is too high.

That view, expressed by the Commonwealth Foundation and other conservative organizations and officials, is grounded in simple realities. Pennsylvania has to compete for employers and for families — and in the past decade to two decades, too often comes up short to states with lower tax burdens.

Pennsylvania also is confronted by the same reality found across America: the cost of health care continues to be a strain. As The Center Square noted, a portion of the increase in state spending is driven by Medicaid-related obligations. Pennsylvanians also have a proverbial iceberg ahead of its proverbial Titanic: Court rulings that find the methodology of funding our public schools — property taxes administered by districts — to lead to unconstitutional disparities.

The cost of health care and of Medicaid will likely grow. The use of revenue collected by the state government to fund public schools will likely grow.

With these two facts in mind, Pennsylvania needs a governor and legislators who recognize that other spending must be cut or deferred back to local and municipal governments. Anything else — like this $50.9 billion budget — will leave Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania’s taxpaying families and businesses unprepared for the realities of the future.