Senate President John Valentine, however, offered some insight into the Senate's reservations after the Republican caucus broke up with a promise to reconvene an unusual Saturday caucus at a downtown hotel.

"The numbers speak for themselves," Valentine said, displaying a white-board dissection of the governor's $11 billion recommended budget.

After taking out so-called base budget increases, a proposal to use $400 million in cash rather than bonds for highway funding, the House's $300 million promise to public education and the House's $300 million tax cut, Valentine calculated it would leave less than $150 million for all other state spending, including Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s recommended pay increases for state workers.

"There is nothing left for anything else under this [House] position," Valentine explained, adding that his figures don't factor in mandatory spending caps that will kick in this year.

Valentine said the budget figures would balance, if the tax break is reduced to the governor's $100 million recommendation.

But House Speaker Greg Curtis said the same numbers speak differently to his chamber. "We can create a budget out of those numbers," Curtis said of the House's $300 million tax break and spending recommendations. "But we will be excited to see what the Senate says will work for them."