Instead, the big winners of the 2005 legislative session appear to be construction contractors and state creditors, who will share the $265 million earmarked for new roads and buildings.

Critics note that Utah County is likely to get a healthy share of the new road money. With the county's newly found power in some of the Legislature's top offices and legitimate needs, that seems a given.

There also is the well-grounded theory that conservatives favor spending on construction because money going into a highway can't be used to create a new program.

Republican leaders don't deny their disdain for growing government, their love of highways or their affinity for Utah County. But they say their massive investment in pavement and brick goes deeper, that they are paying attention to the lessons of history.

Memories of the budget cuts that devastated Utah for three years starting in the waning months of 2001 have dominated a session where now-frustrated lobbyists and advocates assumed everyone would get a fat piece of the pie.

"We are reluctant to spend all of this money," says House budget chief Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley City. "What happened four years ago had a significant impact on the budget process today."

Legislators doled out all of a sizable projected revenue increase in 2001 only to realize that the economic projections were wrong - dead wrong.

Hundreds of millions had to be excised from state departments. The state depleted its savings account, known as the Rainy Day Fund, in a hurry and continued to face mounting deficits.

The only thing making the cuts bearable was the money diverted from transportation and buildings into education and human services.

When the money dries up, the state can stop building a highway, but it can't drop the pay of state employees or send kindergartners home uneducated, Bigelow explains.

Those who participated in the budget cutting sessions say they remain scarred by the experience and have vowed to insulate the state from the next recession.

With projected revenues and cash surpluses in the hundreds of millions, Republican lawmakers decided to replenish transportation and building accounts even before the legislative session began.

And when new financial estimates showed expected new revenues topping $675 million, Republicans threw even more into transportation.

All with the idea that the money serves two purposes: building necessary roads and creating a supersized version of the Rainy Day Fund.

State finance and budget directors call the strategy responsible. Legislative leaders say such forward-thinking is why Utah gets high marks for its handling of taxpayer dollars.

Even Democratic leaders in the Legislature agree with the philosophy - but not the application.

They believe their Republican counterparts have become highway zealots.

"It isn't the wisdom of the approach. It's having a balanced approach that takes into account the other needs of the state," says House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake City.

He wonders why lawmakers won't part with $500,000 to buy HIV drugs for people the federal government recently cut off, or find $3 million to continue providing mental health treatment to hundreds of people severed from care by a change in Medicaid rules.

Then there is education funding, which even Bigelow describes as "modest" this year.

"Those are important long-term investments in the state," Becker says.

State school board Chairman Kim Burningham participated in a news conference last week where he derided legislators who left public education with a "status-quo budget."

"It leaves our students treading water," he complained.

A coalition of religious groups, educators, health professionals and low-income service providers gathered Tuesday on Capitol Hill to petition for a piece of the transportation bonanza.

The 150 participants demanded the money go to child care, Medicaid, housing and education.

Not even transportation officials got what they wanted. The Wasatch Front Regional Council says Utah's metropolitan area needs $4 billion in transportation funds in the next decade just to keep people moving smoothly.

"What we got doesn't come anywhere near that," says Chuck Chappell, council executive director.

The council is calling for an increase in the gas tax and the raising of any number of fees on top of the cash needed to pay down the debt on road projects, such as the completed reconstruction of Interstate 15 in Salt Lake County.

But Republicans are in no mood for a tax increase when state coffers are overflowing, not even in a nonelection year.

The huge infusion of cash into transportation may not negate the need for tax hikes, but it will at least delay them. And in politics, that's often enough.

Bigelow understands the widespread disappointment, saying cautious legislators may have caught educators, state agencies and nonprofit advocates off guard.

While legislative leaders do plan on boosting the amount earmarked for Medicaid and education, they refuse to dip into their transportation piggy bank.

"I don't care where you draw the line, there will always be people on the other side who will say they were not treated fairly," said Senate budget Chairman Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan.

Hillyard and Bigelow say if the economic comeback is stable, new money will be available in years to come for worthwhile programs.

But for now, they are stashing it away - just in case.