It is a simple truth that is anything but simple for a household or a statehouse.

Feeley took his interest and knowledge of finance and budgeting to take on an online challenge.

He went on the Colorado Backseat Budgeter Web site to see if he could try and make the numbers add up.

Feeley is one of 1,300 people who have logged on and given it a try in the last month; 900 of them have gotten to the end of the exercise.

Almost all comment that it is much more complex and frustrating than they expected.

Chris Adams helps manage the Web site.

"We often want to throw rotten tomatoes at our legislators but this actually puts people in the position of being a backseat driver they get to understand and experience what these tough trade offs are," Adams said.

Balancing the budget has gotten more difficult for lawmakers.

Monday, they received an economic forecast that was worse than anticipated. They are now looking for $240 million in additional cuts.

"It's hard to know what to cut. I didn't like any of my choices when I went through it. I looked at it from health care to higher education to K-12 and what do you do when you like all the things but you have to make a hard choice?" Feeley said.

On the site there are two options: Cut programs to save money or create more state revenue by increasing fees or taxes.

It is not scientific by any means; but site creators say it is still interesting.

They say 70 percent are open to the idea of raising taxes to close the shortfall.

"When they saw the benefit of paying a little bit more taxes in terms of not cutting institutions of higher education or health care, generally people were willing to pay slightly higher taxes to preserve those services," Adams said.

The tax that is getting the most attention on the Web site is the state income tax that was lowered in 1999 from 5 percent to 4.63 percent. Many who are going through the budgeter say they would raise that tax back to 5 percent to save some state programs.

Governor Bill Ritter said in a news conference on Monday that he will not consider raising taxes to close the shortfall because he knows so many Colorado families are hurting already. Besides, Colorado's constitution says that raising taxes can only happen if voters approve it.

Adams says he has heard from some Republican and Democrat lawmakers that they are reading the Web site closely and carefully.

"I know the governor's staff has been watching it and paying attention," Adams said.

If you'd like to try the Colorado Backseat Budgeter, log onto http://engagedpublic.com/epbudgets/dashboard.aspx.

The Colorado State University Bighorn Leadership Development Program created the online tool.