HARRISBURG -- House Democratic leaders spent hours yesterday in an unsuccessful effort to get their 104 members on board supporting a $27.9 billion budget proposal for 2009-10, raising fresh doubts about whether it can attract enough votes to pass.

Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, said after a four-hour closed-door caucus meeting in the state Capitol that he would bring up a bill to tax the extraction of natural gas, an unusual move given that such a tax was not a part of the deal he announced more than a week ago with Gov. Ed Rendell and the state Senate.

Rank-and-file House Democrats told leaders they opposed critical pieces of that 11-day-old deal, including subjecting certain arts events to the state sales tax, expanding gas drilling on state land and taxing small games of chance.

"There are concerns about the revenue concepts that have been put on the table in our negotiations, and I think what we're doing is we're working through those issues with our members," Mr. Eachus said. "These issues that relate to the concerns of Democratic members in the majority have to be addressed."

It was unclear how many members might vote against the overall budget based on their objections to specific elements of the multipart deal, but any defections are a problem for House Democrats. They hold 104 seats and need 102 votes to pass the budget, while their Republican counterparts are nearly uniform in their opposition.

"There is significant, across-the-board concern from the rank-and-file," said state Rep. David Levdansky, D-Forward. "I think the opposition is significant. There will have to be some adjustments."

From time to time, Democratic legislators emerged from the closed political caucus.

"I think the small games of chance proposal is in trouble," said Rep. Nick Kotik, D-Robinson, leader of a group of conservative Democrats called the Blue Dogs.

He said many veterans and fraternal groups in Allegheny County have had financial trouble due to stiff competition from the new slots casinos and from paying the county's tax on alcoholic drinks. Under the "games of chance" proposal, such groups would have to pay a 20 percent tax on the revenue they raise for charity by using pull tab games, raffles and punch boards, which would hurt them financially, Mr. Kotik said.

The proposed tax on the small games of chance "isn't a good idea," he said.

And Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-York, whose grandfather was the well-known Pittsburgh Councilman Jeep DePasquale, said the budget should call for taxing smokeless tobacco rather than taxing small games of chance run by nonprofit groups or applying the sales tax tickets to arts and cultural events, museums and zoos.

"Smokeless tobacco causes cancer, yet we are looking to tax the arts? That is troublesome," he said. Pennsylvania is the only state that doesn't tax smokeless tobacco and cigars, yet such a levy isn't part of the budget deal, he said.

Another item slowing things down yesterday was how much of a tax rate -- 12 percent or 18 percent -- to place on revenue from table games, if they are added to casinos. The size of a license fee for table games -- $10 million or $15 million -- is also unsettled.

Meanwhile, Mr. Levdansky and 30 Democratic colleagues were upset over a budget proposal to lease 80,000 additional acres of state forest land to energy companies who would drill for natural gas contained in underground areas of Marcellus shale. These critics objected to a plan to strip the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources of its power to decide how much, if any, additional state forest land should be leased for natural gas drilling.

So far, 660,000 acres of state forest have been leased by DCNR for gas drilling. Mr. Levdansky fears additional drilling could cause serious environmental damage if DCNR doesn't oversee the leasing process.

These Democrats also don't like a proposal to permanently eliminate DCNR's Oil and Gas Fund, which now contains $143 million from lease payments for state land and from royalties paid on oil and gas taken from that acreage. The proposal would shift that money directly into the state's general fund instead of using it to upgrade state parks and forests, as it has for the past 50 years.

Mr. Levdansky is also pushing for a severance tax on all the natural gas pumped out of the areas of Marcellus shale. Many other states already have such a tax, he said, but the current budget proposal doesn't include such tax revenue. Senators oppose such a tax, fearing it will hurt the young natural gas industry now moving into the Marcellus shale area.

House Democratic leaders are under pressure to round up their votes because House Republicans won't give them much support. The GOP is hanging tough in support of its alternate budget plan of $27.5 billion, which doesn't call for new taxes.

House GOP leader Sam Smith of Punxsutawney thinks that more than 90 of the 97 House Republicans will vote against the $27.9 billion proposal, which is called the "three-caucus budget" because it was devised by House Democrats and by Senate Republicans and Democrats.

If most House Republicans vote against the $27.9 billion plan, it will take almost all of the 104 House Democrats to approve it. It is that support that House Democratic leaders were trying to shore up last evening.

Mr. Rendell has said he wants legislators to finish action on the budget, and on companion bills such as a tax code, welfare code, table games bill and small games of chance bill, no later than Sunday. But details remain to be sorted out, and Mr. Eachus said the governor's timetable did not consider legislative rules and procedures.

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