In a desperate effort to flee responsibility, and a certain coming wrath, Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates rammed through a 'continuing' budget resolution last Tuesday and then high-tailed it out of town.

The bedlam, the panic, the urgency of it all brought to mind Jeff Davis' loading of the government onto a train and beating it to Danville back during the Late Unpleasantness.

The problem is, the only thing it continued is this historic string of unprecedented House Republican failures.

Gov. Mark Warner and leaders of the Republican-controlled Virginia Senate immediately rejected this latest, pathetic dodge -- and well they should have. The first casualty of such a ruse would be Virginia's Triple AAA bond rating, many knowledgeable observers believe.

Stunned, even bewildered, by the state-wide public beating they've taken from constituents the last couple of weeks, House Republicans acted as if they were -- well -- stunned and bewildered.

Instead of working toward a good faith resolution, a genuine compromise with the Senate, they turned instead to Ray Allen, the Republican voodoo guru and tried to poll themselves out of trouble.

News flash here: it didn't work.

What separates the House and Senate, when it comes right down to it, is a penny -- one lousy penny -- on the sales tax. That's right, that's what this argument is essentially about. That's what we've put our bond rating at risk over. That's what we've traumatized our local governments over. That's what we've stressed tens of thousands of state employees over. One lousy penny on the sales tax that would effectively close the gap between the House and Senate budget proposals.

The line-up of positions in this argument is so one-sided the whole thing is almost laughable.

On one side is the governor and his administration, the Republican-controlled Senate, Democrats in the House and Senate, the state's business community, including the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, which is largely Republican, every local government in Virginia, every school board in Virginia, every college and/or university in Virginia and nearly every other advocate group in the Commonwealth.

On the other is a handful of ideology driven, right-wing Republicans in the House of Delegates.

One bottle-neck through which common sense must pass is speaker of the House, Bill Howell.

Sure, lots of folks think he's being whipped along and held in line by the likes of Delegate Kirk Cox, the glassiest of the glassy-eyed, and those who would elevate Cox to the speakership, given the opportunity, but that's letting Howell off the hook with an easy excuse. Too easy. He must take responsibility.

That there are severe divisions within the House Republican Caucus is a certainty. Some of those fissure lines are beginning to show.

A senior member of the House Republican Caucus indicated last week to this writer that the Caucus would support an increase in the sales tax, given the opportunity to do so by secret ballot. Howell has resisted this so far, preferring instead public affirmations of his decisions within the Caucus. But that may be changing, too. Howell apparently is giving some consideration to allowing a secret ballot on the matter of the sales tax increase.

No, don't think for a second that he's coming down with a good government virus. They all took shots against that. More likely he's starting to understand that his Speakership may well depend on it.

There is a way out of this mess, still. There is a way out. But it is going to require that Republicans in the House do what has previously been to them unthinkable: the job voters elected them to do.

A secret ballot in the Republican House Caucus on the sales tax may be the start of that.

Consider this for your next gift:
A 60,000 word collection of Barnie Day’s commentaries, entitled "A Mule Yule: Hey, Jesus didn’t ride in on an elephant," with an introduction by Jerry Baliles and forewords by Frosty Landon, Larry Sabato, Robert Holsworth,and Bill Wood, is available from the Democratic Party of Virginia. Contact Laura Bland, toll-free, at 1-800-322-1144