COLUMBIA, S.C. - Proposals to raise the state's sales tax to cure budget ills have been killed and the Senate was no closer Wednesday to finishing work on the $5.1 billion spending plan.

While rules killed three proposals, the only plan that came to a vote died on a 15-30 vote after hours of debate.

Sen. Tommy Moore, D-Aiken, spoke for more than an hour on a plan to raise the state sales tax to seven cents from a nickel on the dollar and use the money for a variety of tax breaks and to increase education, health care and agency spending.

Moore's proposals would have generated $1.1 billion by raising the sales tax and increasing the cigarette tax by 53 cents a pack. It also returned $202.3 million to taxpayers in a variety of breaks, including eliminating state taxes for the first $15,000 in income and reducing the tax rate on some smaller business to 5 percent from 7 percent.

The plan called for putting $59.3 million into state worker pay, $380 million into public schools, $264.7 million into health-related programs and $55.4 million into criminal justice related agencies.

However, the plan, as another one Tuesday, was killed because it makes a permanent change in state law as an amendment to the annual budget bill.

A plan Republican Sen. David Thomas of Fountain Inn offered Tuesday would have raised about $1 billion through a 2-cents-on-the-dollar sales tax increase. About $200 million of that would have gone into school funding, but the rest would eliminate about 95 percent of all property taxes on homes and cars. That plan also was killed by the rules and no vote was taken on it.

Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island, followed Moore's plan with a one-year, one-cent sales tax increase that included a cigarette tax increase. That plan, too, fell victim to the rules.

Moore came back with another version of his plan, while part of it violated the rules, it was the only sales tax measure to reach a vote and failed 15-30.

The procedural challenges peeved Sen. Verne Smith, R-Greer and the Senate's third-longest serving member. "I've never known this Senate to get so tangled up in its own rules that we can't function," Smith said. He wanted senators to be able to "act like senators instead of acting like eunuchs."

Wednesday's budget debate got off to a small, but longwinded start over $2,778.

Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia, held the floor for almost an hour arguing against putting that amount into the salary of Elliott Franks, chief executive officer of the state Jobs Economic Development Authority.

Knotts said Franks told him he didn't want the money. Knotts ultimately succeeded, but not before drawing criticism for delaying the budget debate from Sen. Kay Patterson, D-Columbia.

"Here we are bogged down on 2,700 dollars," he said. "Where are we going?"