Bob Burns’ first year as Senate president was trouble-ridden, to put it mildly.

His task was to balance a budget that was billions of dollars in the red by rounding up 16 votes for a spending plan that nobody was going to like.

Despite the challenge of erasing budget deficits estimated at $5 billion for the next two fiscal years, House Speaker Kirk Adams said lawmakers now are more fully equipped to handle the problems.

In all probability, Republican legislative leadership and the governor will need Democratic votes in the Senate to pass a referral to increase the state sales tax. If bipartisan talks take place, the job of negotiating the terms will fall on Jorge Luis Garcia, the Democratic minority leader from Tucson.

Democratic state lawmakers are hoping 2010 is a better year than 2009.

Things were bad when Gov. Jan Brewer took office in January 2009, and they’ve gotten worse since then.

The plan Brewer pitched as a remedy to Arizona’s crippling budget problems met fierce resistance, and 10 months later it still has not been enacted. But as Brewer begins her second year as governor, she said she still believes in her plan