Florida lawmakers steamed forward today with radically different visions for how to keep paying state government’s bills — a battle line drawn between higher tobacco taxes and more gambling, or deeper cuts and borrowing.

Authorities plan to meet early Sunday to decide when to re-open Alligator Alley, which remains closed tonight due to heavy smoke conditions on the roadway.

More than 4,000 Florida National Guard soldiers, including some 600 from South Florida, are to be called to active duty in the next few months in what is the largest mobilization in state history.

Most of the troops called up will be deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Guard spokesman Lt. Col Ron Tittle. Others could be assigned to federal security missions in the United States.

“I’m not sure what to expect,” said Coral Springs resident Ernest Mason, 20, who will leave behind his wife of four months, Camilla, when he heads to a yearlong combat tour in Iraq with the 124th Infantry’s First Battalion. “It’s a worry. But I’ve thought about being in the military since I was 14. I’m getting as much training as I can.”

Florida Guardsmen will also be sent to Afghanistan as part of the Obama administration’s plans to double the number of U.S. troops there even as the drawdown of forces in Iraq continues. There are now 40,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and 142,000 in Iraq.

Sidestepping critics who say it won’t solve Florida’s pill-mill problem, Gov. Charlie Crist signed long-fought legislation Thursday designed to crack down on clinics and doctors who dole out excessive narcotic painkillers — mainly in South Florida.