COLUMBIA--Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in.

The General Assembly last week was close to pulling off what would have qualified as a minor miracle, actually passing a 2003-04 state budget and going home by June 5, this year's scheduled adjournment date.

On Wednesday evening, the House and Senate appointed a conference committee that worked through the night to reach an agreement by Thursday morning. By that afternoon, the House had adopted the compromise bill and hit the trail. Things were looking good for a photo finish to the 2003 legislative session.

In the waning hours of Thursday evening, the Senate managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, finding enough flaws in the $5 billion bill to throw everything into a bureaucratic time warp, with the public picking up the tab of about $75,000 a day.

Now with overtime a certainty, nothing else is.

The fate of the .08 DUI legislation, Public Service Commission reform and campaign finance reform hang in limbo. Any or all of these major pieces could be passed in the remaining days of the session, or could be used as missiles to shoot at any budget compromise plan that any senator sees as unsuitable.

It could get ugly.

Not that last week was particularly pretty. The week began with Gov. Mark Sanford and a dozen senators holding a Statehouse news conference to rally support for a cigarette tax increase in exchange for an income tax reduction.

That press powwow was pre-empted by a House news conference to announce that the influx of federal dollars from new tax cuts, some $265 millions over 18 months, had eliminated any and all need for additional money.

The juxtaposition was lost on no one as House Speaker David Wilkins, who had vowed to fight any tax increase from the first day of session, said, "I believe our position has been validated."

Perhaps the first sign that the cigarette tax, or any other increase, was doomed for the year was the attendance of Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell at the House news conference.

McConnell is never reticent in his disagreements with the House, but in this instance he was plum complimentary, telling House leadership: "Thanks for staying strong against tax increases. The House of Representatives has saved people from this."

Cue the politics-makes-strange-bedfellows clichÈs.

NOTHING WOULD GET DONE

For a while, the cigarette tax looked as if it had momentum in the Senate and was likely to pass. Still, most Statehouse insiders realized it would take a miracle to get the tax-testy House to go along with the idea.

"It's not desks so much as foxholes we have in the House," Rep. John Graham Altman III said. "People are mostly dug in."

In the Senate, the cigarette tax drew its last breaths when Sen. Jake Knotts began a filibuster that ran senators from the chamber by midafternoon.

One ranking senator noted that the effect was the same: They could stay or leave. Either way, nothing would get done.

FINGER POINTING

The budget that the House-Senate conference committee temporarily agreed on last week included education spending of $1,701 per pupil. It was a modest increase from the $1,643 that originally had been in the House budget, but below the current year figure of $1,770 and way below the Board of Economic Advisers' recommendation of $2,201.

The governor and Democrats blasted Republicans for the low funding and said the number should get higher. State Rep. James Smith, the House Democratic leader, said, "Republicans have carved us a path guaranteed to put us in last place in education."

LEAVE THAT MONEY ALONE

One budget item already struck from the appropriations bill is the interest money the Legislature was swiping from Patriot's Point's bank account. After McConnell found that little line item and raised a ruckus a couple of weeks ago, no one was going fool with that $90,000 or so.

BEST MEDICINE

In the midst of all the budget wrangling, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer did wonders to rehabilitate his image by having a little fun at his own expense while attending a party for a local high school's graduating seniors at a go-cart track. Local television stations ran footage of Bauer, who was held at gunpoint during a traffic stop just weeks earlier, darting around the track in a go-cart, a place where he could speed without consequence.

Columbia anchors could not resist but introduce the story by saying, "Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer had his pedal to the metal again this week ..."

The young lieutenant governor is learning that self-deprecation is the best medicine for what ails you.

FORLORN HOPE?

This week, lawmakers will work on finishing up conference committees on remaining legislation and tackling the budget. South Carolina taxpayers should hope that the boys and girls play nicely this week.

Don't hold your breath.

Contact Brian Hicks at (843) 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com.