ST. PAUL (AP) — As intractable as the budget mess that led to the Minnesota government shutdown seems to be, there is a way out.

For all their rhetoric, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and GOP leaders have shown hints they could compromise, and in some cases offered small clues on how.

Dayton has pushed for months to raise income taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents to fix a budget $5 billion in the red. Yet he has suggested he would drop that proposal if Republicans who control the Legislature agree to some other way of raising money to get closer to his spending target of nearly $36 billion.

That’s a big if for the GOP, and yet in the last round of negotiations, party leaders showed they might finally budge on their proposed spending limit of $34 billion — the amount the state is expected to collect in the next two years if no new revenue is found.