Gov. Rick Perry on Friday said he likes the idea of dedicating a portion of future car sales taxes to road projects and also said he's open to spending up to $6 billion of the Rainy Day Fund on infrastructure projects.

Erica Grieder, a senior editor at Texas Monthly and the author of a new book on the "Texas Model," on the state's successes, its critics and whether the model needs any tweaks.

The full Texas Senate will consider a plan to spend about half of the projected $11.8 billion balance in the state's Rainy Day Fund for transportation and water projects, though Democrats plan to push for money for schools as well.

The House debate on the budget flushed out a new coalition in a Legislature split between traditional and populist Republicans, and Democrats. The losers? The populist Republicans, many of them freshmen.

This week's news-inspired playlist is entirely dedicated to Thursday's budget debate in the Texas House. To set the stage, we begin with Stevie Wonder singing "We Can Work It Out."

Batheja on a House budget without vouchers or Medicaid expansion, Aguilar on obstacles to a new power plant in El Paso, Permenter on deer breeder regulations, E. Smith’s interview with San Antonio’s Castro twins, Galbraith on proposals for new underground water reservoirs, Root finds holes in a UT regent's appointment files, M. Smith on a planned school rating system that defied recommendations, Murphy maps oil and gas disposal wells in Texas, Dehn on objections to a bigger Medicaid program and Hamilton on efforts to lure gun makers to Texas: The best of our best for the week of April 1-5, 2013.

A few bursts of drama punctuated an otherwise tame day of debate over the House budget on Thursday.

Despite tense votes on vouchers and a setback for lawmakers who want to expand Medicaid, the Texas House passed its budget with overwhelming support after 12 hours of remarkably civil debate.

Texas House members are expected to debate well into the night Thursday as they take up the lower chamber's budget proposal, which includes 267 amendments.

On the latest Agenda Texas, from KUT News and the Tribune: a preview of the budget fight coming up Thursday in the Texas House, where debate could last well into the night.

Leaders in the Legislature decided this was the year to move more than $6 billion in income off the books. While they argue it improves budget transparency in the long term, in the short term it creates the illusion that this year's budget plan is growing less than it is.

With eight weeks to go in the legislative session, lawmakers got a running start at their big issues: water, education and the budget.

About a dozen freshman Republicans in the Texas House have filed dozens of amendments to the state budget with the same goal: defunding various programs and agencies and putting that money toward retired teachers.

An exit ramp so important it warrants mention in the Texas budget is just one of the many "riders" in competing spending plans proposed by the Texas House and Senate.

The $193.8 billion budget approved by the House Appropriations Committee includes an extra $2.5 billion for public education. The bill is smaller than the Senate budget by about $1.7 billion.

The Texas Senate approved a $195.5 billion budget Wednesday that even supporters called an intermediate step toward a final spending plan for the next two years. 

The state balances its budget by counting nearly $5 billion in unspent funds that were raised for specific programs. To change their ways, lawmakers would have to go back to what they were trying to avoid: choices between taxes and cuts.

House and Senate leaders have come to the same painful conclusion: spending from the Rainy Day Fund is subject to the constitutional spending limit. They disagree on what to do now.