ATLANTA -- If someone could have predicted Haiti's earthquake earlier this month, would anyone have listened? The question for Gov. Sonny Perdue is whether anyone is listening when he predicts a financial disaster for Georgia.

He spent a half hour Tuesday telling the House and Senate appropriations committees how bad the budget will be next year without raising taxes and user fees in combination with the massive cuts he is recommending. Then for the next three days, his administrators of the state's largest agencies took turns with their same tales of woe.

"I'd love to get up here like Snow White and tell you we will all live happily ever after," Perdue said.

It would be easiest for him to leave the tough choices to his successor and smile from the rocking chair on his porch back home in Bonaire at the agony, he said. Especially since convincing conservative Republicans who run the legislature to raise taxes won't be easy during an election year.

"Election year or not, if we shirk our responsibility, we will not leave things better for the ones who come after us," he said.

By Friday, some conservative Republicans remained unconvinced.

That's when Rep. Melvin Everson of Snellville, objected to imposing a few $10 fees on health-department lab tests and boosting the fee for birth certificates from $10 to $15.

"I am opposed to a user fee when it has not been proven to me that all waste has been removed from the budget," he said.

Everson predicted the governor would deliver more speeches to the legislature to better make his case.

That's not a certainty. Perdue passed up the opportunity to deliver his pitch to the entire legislature at once during his State of the State Address. He chose instead to use general terms to compare today's economy to other rough spots in history, from wars to the Great Depression.

Things were different in his first year when he delivered endless stump speeches across the state trying to sell a package of tax increases to overcome a comparatively milder budget crunch. He wasn't successful, and he hasn't employed a tenth of the same level of campaign vigor pushing any of his budgets or legislative initiatives since.

Just last year, he proposed another tax increase. That time, he lost again in the legislature.

So this year, he resurrected last year's tax proposal, a 1.6-percent levy on the revenues of all hospitals, health insurance companies and even stand-alone surgical centers. To that, he included the fees Rep. Everson objected to.

Perdue is the first modern governor to face the hostile override of one of his vetoes. He's had marginal success passing his annual legislative agenda. And he wasn't even in the country for the final days of one session when the most significant bills are voted on.

Two examples illustrate what can happen when lawmakers operate without active persuasion from the executive branch. One is Georgia's experience with two rounds of standoffs between the House and Senate over competing plans for a transportation sales tax. The other example is the federal health reform in which President Obama remained aloof while the U.S. House and Senate wrote their own plans, which have now apparently both failed.

While Perdue has been accused of being disengaged during past sessions. He shows signs of a new approach.

Earlier this month, Perdue stepped out in the transportation-funding debate with his own proposal after years of keeping mum.

The governor said he's been in close contact with leaders of the Georgia legislature throughout the past year. He conferred with them about withholding agency funds at the beginning of the fiscal year last July, and he consulted them about his order to furlough all state workers three days.

That was last year, however. Just a few hours before Perdue released his budget recommendations to reporters Jan. 15, both House and Senate appropriations chairmen told an audience at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute that neither had any idea what it would contain. Guessing that a tax or fee increase might be included, House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin made a prediction.

"I think the governor is going to try to do it with some things that are not going to be very popular with the House and Senate," he said.

Everson's comments suggest three days of selling didn't increase their popularity.

If so, Perdue may become more visible hawking predictions of a financial earthquake, and then it will be up to the legislature to decide whether to believe him.