House Republican Leader Paul Stam said that one more student in Wake County classrooms would save as much as $200 million in construction costs.

The Senate's budget proposal would increase the average class size by two students to save $320 million. The change is intended to be temporary.

Stam said if the state made permanent an increase of one student, it would save much more in future construction costs.

"That experience in class size reduction has had almost no educational benefits and yet has cost the state billions and billions," said Stam, an Apex Republican.

Stam made his comments during a taping of Headline Saturday, a WRAL-produced show that features WRAL anchor David Crabtree and News & Observer Executive Editor John Drescher as hosts. A certain Dome contributor also appeared on this week's show, which was a roundup of legislative action this session.

The show will air at 7 p.m. on WRAL and will be available on the station's Web site.

Correction: A previous version of this post overstated the amount of savings. Stam said a one student-per-teacher increase would delay the need for

* four elementary schools operating on a traditional calendar or three elementary schools operating on a year-round multi-track calendar ($23 million per school)

* one middle school operating on a traditional calendar or (80%) of a middle school operating on a year-round calendar. ($43 million)

* one high school operating on a traditional calendar. ($73 million) 

Gov. Beverly Perdue borrowed a page from President Obama tonight.

In her first State of the State speech before the legislature, the Democratic governor noted the "tough times" in the economy and called for an end to political bickering.

"Starting today, it is no longer business as usual for North Carolina's budget," she said. "I want all of our citizens to know that it's a new day in North Carolina. Everything is on the table. We do not have time for talk-show political posturing or petty partisan games."

Though the state capital has a handful of political talk shows — N.C. Spin, News 14 Carolina's "Political Connections" and some episodes of "Headline Saturday" — it is hardly overrun by the pundits that rule Washington, D.C.

(Kim Genardo's "At Issue" show was canceled last month.)

But President Obama has gotten a lot of mileage in recent weeks out of criticizing radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.

There are a number of radio shows around the state with similar styles to Limbaugh, such as those on WPTF AM radio in the Triangle. But they don't have a statewide reach.