Washington state has to live within its means. Current state forecasts show new revenue at 7 percent above old revenue, yet claimants on the state budget feel shortchanged. They want more. They are not interested in the total but only their share.

That's the first problem for Gov. Christine Gregoire, who is putting together her first budget request as governor. After months of campaigning, now the specific demands roll in: money for state employees, money for teachers, money for children on Medicaid, money for pension plans. Her party, which controls state government, has desires that total more than 7 percent. Gary Locke offered them a 12-percent budget increase and he did not excite them.

The state has to support itself from taxes on the private economy, but the economic engines that bring money into Washington — aerospace, software and manufacturing — have generated hardly any net new jobs since the recession. It is not a good time to squeeze them.

A tax increase was certainly not the message sent by citizens who voted Nov. 2 against a 1-percent rise in the sales tax. The increase was for schools and still 60 percent voted against it. Gregoire had not supported that tax; she had, in fact, beaten a rival in the Democratic primary who supported an income tax. Republican Dino Rossi had not supported any taxes, and he won half the votes. Generally, it was not a mandate for spending.

But spending does not occur generally. It is specific. Each proposal has a case for itself. State employees have not had a general raise for several years, teachers are underpaid, higher education needs more slots, K-12 education needs to gear up for a testing deadline for the class of 2008, Medicaid needs to cover children. We have agreed with several of these things, considered one at a time. Yet, editorial pages spend only theoretical dollars. Legislators, who spend real ones, have to make the budget balance.

It is said the state faces a $1.8 billion shortfall. That may be the wrong way to think of it, because it is a gap between the real world and an imagined one. The better way to think of it is that the state will have 7 percent more money.

Seven percent is real. It is not a bad amount. Let's see if we can live within it.