The hard bargaining over a new state budget in the next two weeks presents a clear clash of Democrats vs. Republicans, not House Republicans vs. Senate Republicans.

There was hostility Monday between Democrats and Republicans over a budget proposal advanced a day earlier by the Senate Finance Committee on a party-line vote.

Majority Democrats pushed through a budget containing a gasoline tax increase and the use of more than $400 million from the rainy-day cash reserves on a nine to seven vote.

Instead of the clubby unity between Senate Democrats and Republicans, there was rancor Monday. Senator William Wampler said he and the Senate's Republicans would not back a budget that uses so much from the rainy-day fund and starts new programs, including cash for pre-kindergarten.

Senator Ed Houck, a Democrat, shot back, "It takes a lot of guts to start kicking around those four-year-old children."