HARRISBURG -- If House and Senate conferees aren't close to a new state budget by Monday, Gov. Ed Rendell will ask the House to enact a $27.1 billion proposal the Senate has already approved, and then he will use a line-item veto to eliminate three-fourths of its expenditures.

The six-member state budget conference committee held its first meeting yesterday but spent much of its time quibbling about minor issues, such as who would be chairman and where the panel should meet.

"Bickering about these procedural matters ... is making a mockery of the process," said Sen. Jay Costa, ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, during the meeting. "We need to get to the heart of the matter."

Four hours later, the sides were no closer together.

House Democratic Leader Todd Eachus of Luzerne asked fellow conferees to consider the "real people behind the budget numbers. We have state employees working with no pay; we have children who might need special education funding; we have your grandmother who might be needing a nursing home."

House Republican Leader Sam Smith of Punxsutawney said he's concerned about the "Average Joe Lunchbuckets" of Pennsylvania.

"Taxpayers are hurting. They're afraid they're going to lose their jobs," he told Mr. Eachus during the meeting. "You have to recognize the reality of the recession and the effect it's having taxpayers."

Mr. Rendell said he was "deeply chagrined" at the panel's lack of progress in fashioning a compromise among three potential budget plans -- a $27.1 billion plan approved by the Senate in May, a $29.1 billion alternative plan approved by House Democrats, and Mr. Rendell's own budget plan, which started at nearly $29 billion in February but which he said he has now trimmed to $28.2 billion.

The conference panel will likely meet every day, including this weekend. But if it isn't well on its way to hammering out a new budget by Monday, Mr. Rendell will ask the Democratic-run House to approve the Senate-passed budget and send it to him for signature.

But before signing, he will veto about 600 of the 700 line items in that bill, called Senate Bill 850. He will leave only funds for "general government operations" by state agencies. Mr. Rendell called that "a bridge budget" -- by no means a complete spending plan for the fiscal year that began July 1.

One advantage of a bridge budget, he said, is that the state's 77,000 workers, who since July 1 have gotten only partial paychecks (or no paychecks), will finally be paid, though it will take about a week after he signs the partial budget to get them their back pay.

Under a bridge budget, he said, critical state operations that would still be funded include anything related to public health and safety, such as state police, state prisons and correctional officers, highway safety, the safety of amusement park rides, and restaurant and agricultural inspections.

State spending to be vetoed includes the $330 million allotted for the General Assembly itself for 2009-10; $11.5 billion for K-12 public schools and higher education, including college students' grants and loans; much of the nearly $10 billion proposed for the Department of Public Welfare; programs for senior citizens and the mentally and physically disabled; payments to hospitals; state funding for county human service programs; and funds for the arts, libraries and museums.

"County governments will be hurt" if state funds are withheld, Mr. Rendell said. He said Allegheny County gets $360 million a year in state funds, and so would lose $30 million for each month a budget is delayed.

Mr. Rendell said he thought the bridge budget idea was better than a previous idea called a "stopgap budget," which he suggested on Monday he might pursue. The latter would have been just a short-term solution, good for only one, two or three months.

While it would have allowed workers to be paid, it would have removed, for a few weeks, much of the pressure and urgency for legislators to make the hard choices needed for a complete new budget, he said. When many items in a bridge budget are vetoed, there will be pressure from school officials, hospitals, counties and other non-funded groups for the Legislature to enact a full budget.

Mr. Rendell insisted that a broad-based tax increase is needed to provide adequate state spending for important programs, and he is proposing a three-year, 16 percent increase in the income tax, plus higher tobacco taxes and a natural gas extraction tax.

But Senate Republicans oppose them, especially the higher income tax.