The House floor sessions for the last two days have been dominated by debate over legislation to protect kids from bullying at school, which doesn't seem like it should be very controversial.

Almost everywhere else in Legislative Building, the talk is still taxes as House and Senate leaders try to reach an agreement on a revenue package to make it possible to pass a budget by next Tuesday, the end of the fiscal year, though that now seems highly unlikely.

Reportedly, negotiators have agreed on $900 million as the amount they want to raise, but there are still considerable differences between the House and Senate on how to raise it. 

The Senate tax plan relies heavily on broadening the sales tax base to include many services not currently taxed and increasing the sales tax on electricity from 3 percent to 6.75 percent. The plan lowers the overall sales tax rate.

The House plan expands the sales tax base and increases the rate by ¼ of one percent. But the House proposal to raise income taxes on people who make more than $200,000 a year remains a major sticking point, with some Senate leaders vowing never to support it.

While the tax talks continue, another group of budget writers are meeting to resolve the many differences in what the House and Senate want to fund and where they want to cut to address the $4.6 billion shortfall.

Even with $900 million in new revenue, deep and painful cuts are coming in education, human services, and criminal justice programs.

Budget subcommittees have worked out many of the dozens of differences in the two spending plans, but plenty remain, including some that defy explanation and common sense.

Senate negotiators have refused to agree with the House proposal to end a windfall for athletic booster clubs at UNC schools. Senate leaders inserted a provision in the 2005 budget that allows booster clubs to pay in-state tuition for athletic scholarships for out-of-state athletes.

The in-state tuition provision costs the taxpayers roughly $10 million a year, impossible to justify in any budget, but ridiculously irresponsible when the university system is laying off workers, cutting classes, and raising tuition.

Amazingly, some university leaders are still lobbying for the provision behind the scenes, even as they are decrying the proposed budget cuts in public.

Two lobbyists for Citizens for Higher Education are still patrolling the halls urging lawmakers to leave the booster club windfall in place.  The group is a political action committee funded by wealthy supporters of UNC-Chapel Hill. N.C. State has a similar PAC and between them, the two committees have given a million dollars to legislative candidates in the last four years.

That's a lot of incentive for lawmakers to reject the House proposal to repeal the in-state tuition provision. The other problem is that it was slipped in the budget four years ago by the same Senate leaders who are in power now and negotiating the final budget.

But that's no excuse for choosing booster clubs over students and faculty. The in-state tuition provision ought to be the first thing negotiators agree on, but it may be one of the items that holds up passage of a final budget.

The Senate is right about Health Choice, the state's health insurance program for kids in working poor families. House budget writers initially claimed their plan did not knock any kids off the program, but it turns out it would deny services to 30,000 kids, saving close to $10 million. The federal government funds 75 percent of the program.

The Senate budget funds a 12 percent increase in Health Choice, which makes sense since more children are eligible for the program during an economic downturn.

If House leaders haven't already agreed to the Senate position on Health Choice, they ought to immediately. Then the Senate ought to give up the booster club subsidy, no matter what the PAC lobbyists say.

There are a lot of complicated questions before lawmakers as they scramble to put a final budget together, but choosing education over boosters and providing health care for kids are not among them.