Deadline for a deal?

Both leaders in the legislature say that midnight tonight is the deadline for a budget deal, although I don't know if I see much to believe it. The Senate made an offer that sounds pretty reasonable, so we will see what happens.

I'm still not optimistic. The tax working group, made up of House and Senate members, has been charged with reaching a compromise on the revenue side of things, and they don't seem to be getting anywhere. Recently, the House offered to increase cigarette taxes (below a level supported by the governor), but later withdrew that and put forward racino again. Since everybody but Phil Krinkie seem to think that raising cigarette taxes is okay, this looks like a move away from compromise on the part of the House.

However, there is a bipartisan group of legislators trying to reach an agreement. This group sounds like it has almost have the members of the House as participants, people who are obviously tired of the fact that only three people are making the decisions. If they can come up with a compromise that they can support, the shutdown could end, and in an interesting way to boot: bypassing leadership to get the job done.