Topeka ? Leaders saw little progress Tuesday in the House toward agreement on a tax plan for avoiding big spending cuts and ending the longest legislative session in Kansas history.

A $283 million package of budget-balancing tax increases failed Monday in the House. Conservative Republicans, unmoved by warnings that their party could suffer, joined Democrats in rejecting two tax bills.

Defeat of the tax plan led House and Senate negotiators to resume their talks, with another meeting scheduled for Tuesday. But some GOP leaders had doubts more negotiations would produce a plan that could pass.

“I don’t see any significant movement,” said House Taxation Committee Chairman John Edmonds, R-Great Bend.

Democrats also saw little movement and continued to criticize Republican leaders.

“They’re only willing to listen to solutions that are their solutions,” said Rep. R.J. Wilson, D-Pittsburg. “They’re not willing to listen.”

As moderate Republican leaders and Democrats remained at odds, primarily over raising income taxes, pressure increased on conservative Republicans who still opposed any tax increase.

“I know what an egg feels like on a frying pan,” said conservative Rep. Tony Powell, R-Wichita. “They’re begging people.”

The session was in a record 104th day. The Kansas Constitution specifies 90 days, though lawmakers can go longer by passing a resolution, as they did this year.

“I’m going to keep pounding my head against the wall and hoping the wall gives way, but I’ve got to tell you, my head is getting sore, and my hair is falling out,” said House Speaker Kent Glasscock, R-Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Gov. Bill Graves prepared to notify state agencies that he would cut $300 million from the $4.4 billion budget that the Legislature approved earlier for the 2003 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Graves promised to call the first special legislative session since December 1989 unless lawmakers raised taxes. He began a trip that was to take him to four cities to talk to newspaper and television editors.

“It’s a high-wire act with no net, and I don’t want them to make a fatal mistake,” Graves told reporters Monday.

On Monday, by a 71-50 vote, the House rejected a bill that would have generated $279 million by raising the state’s 4.9 percent sales tax to 5.3 percent, increasing the 24-cent tax on a pack of cigarettes to 89 cents and taxing property inherited by nieces, nephews and non-relatives.

Also defeated, on an 88-32 vote, was a measure to generate $6 million by raising wholesale taxes on beer, wine and hard liquor. Those increases were offset by business tax breaks, amounting to $2 million for fiscal 2003.

During a caucus meeting before Monday’s vote, Glasscock begged fellow Republicans to vote for the tax plan.

“We stand at the edge,” he said. “The next step will lead us into a fall that we cannot survive.”

Forty-eight Republicans and two Democrats voted for the bill addressing sales, cigarette and inheritance taxes.

But it was opposed by 28 Republicans generally conservatives skeptical that severe cuts or higher taxes are needed to balance the budget.

Also voting no were 43 Democrats, whose leaders have insisted that any tax plan should also increase income taxes for wealthy Kansans, arguing it would be the fairest way to raise money.

To improve the bill’s chances, GOP leaders used a parliamentary move to keep the roll open and members in their seats for more than two hours while they worked their phones to get some to change “no” votes.

They changed only a few votes.

“A lot of us signed no-tax pledges,” Powell said. “We promised our voters we wouldn’t raise taxes.”

Democrats said conservatives were to blame, arguing they couldn’t or wouldn’t cut the budget, even as they continued to talk about holding the line on taxes and reining in government.

“It’s up to them,” said Rep. Bob Grant, D-Cherokee, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “They’ve got the numbers.”

Democrats also said any plan that relied on sales and other excise taxes would hit poor and working class families the hardest by increasing the price of consumer goods.

But Graves said the pain for state agencies and Kansans who depend upon their services would be intense without higher taxes.

The budget that lawmakers approved lowered spending in fiscal 2003 by $137 million, or 3 percent, from this year’s $4.54 billion budget. With the reductions Graves planned, the decrease would be $437 million, or 9.6 percent.

The governor’s list included $183 million to the Department of Education, an additional $56 million for higher education, and $22 million for social services.

In other action:

School districts would have a financial incentive to consolidate with their neighbors under a bill approved by the House.

With negotiations on congressional redistricting at an impasse, both chambers were considering new proposals.

Prospects faded for final passage of a bill expanding legal gambling.