The three-year battle with the Legislature that Gov. Mark Sanford said he wanted to end this year blew up big-time Thursday when angry House Republicans said Sanford's Wednesday criticism of budget deliberations was "unprecedented and misleading."

Where Sanford said House budget-writers were railroading "a spending train" and not looking out for taxpayers' interests, House leaders denounced Sanford in some of the strongest terms of his first three controversy-filled legislative sessions.

At issue is whether the House Ways and Means Committee will adopt Sanford's recommendation to use new revenue for a $400- per-family income tax rebate or use the money for government programs.

In an afternoon statement, on behalf of the 74-member House Republican Caucus, Majority Leader Jim Merrill, R-Daniel Island, said, "The press machine in the Governor's Mansion released three independently made statements as a unified attack on the legislative process and members of the House leadership."

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Merrill said Sanford's "implications ... were unwarranted and unprofessional."

Assistant Majority Leader Adam Taylor, R-Laurens, said the "episode is entirely mind-boggling. I do not understand how the Ways and Means Committee members can come under attack before even the first budget item has been voted on."

But as the House caucus was completing a closed-door session to prepare its response, Sanford struck back, first e-mailing more than 12,000 of his supporters to ask for their help in waving off legislators from "yet another year of double-digit percentage increase in government spending."

Later, his spokesman, Joel Sawyer, said, "This is not about personalities. Trying to make this out as a fight between the governor and the General Assembly is to confuse night and day."

Sawyer said, "This is really simple. It's about spending, about whether we want to grow government at 10 percent or 15 or 5 percent. Republicans are supposed to be about smaller, more efficient government and asking for a double-digit increase is not what the taxpayers elected any of us to do."

Rep. Bob Leach, R-Greenville, described the 90-minute caucus meeting as "very hostile." The ongoing exchanges, he said, are part of "a running war, but that's nothing new."

Sanford , who held out an olive branch to lawmakers in his January State of the State address, on Wednesday took umbrage at the Ways and Means Committee's handling of the 2006-07 budget and his call for replenishment of money borrowed from trust funds and tax rebates, recently upped to $400 per family in light of an unexpected $100 million hike in projected revenue.

He was reacting to reports that the budget-writing committee might overlook his program, Sawyer said.

Sanford said that the committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Cooper, R-Piedmont, is "headed in the wrong direction when it comes to keeping an eye on the taxpayers."

The Republican governor's statement included comments from Rep. Harry Cato, R-Travelers Rest, and Jim Harrison, R-Columbia, that appeared to support his position.

But Thursday, Cato said Sanford "misinterpreted and misused" the opening of the annual budget debate "to score political points rather than provide substantive input to the debate."

Harrison said that while he agrees with Sanford on the need to restrain the growth of government, "There was never an attempt to undermine the ongoing work of the (Ways and Means) Committee, the chairman or Speaker (Bobby) Harrell."

Suggesting that the Governor's Office was attempting to divide the House GOP Caucus, Harrison said, "To imply such is a gross misrepresentation. I was not even aware that the Governor's Office had solicited comments from other members of the House leadership."

Sanford had said "there are also a number of people in the House who are committed to the idea of limiting government growth and restoring trust and reserve funds, and I will continue to work with these like-minded people to stop this spending train early before it gets too far down the tracks and hopefully send a dividend back to the taxpayers in the process."

Comments from Harrison, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Cato, chairman of Labor, Commerce and Industry, followed.

Sawyer said Cato, Harrison and Rep. Doug Smith, R-Spartanburg, the speaker pro tem, attended a Wednesday morning meeting with the governor, "laid out some concerns about the direction they say the House budget is going in. We let them know exactly what the governor would be saying and they agreed to be a part of it."

But Jason Zacher, spokesman for the House GOP caucus, said the trio "made three independent statements to the Governor's Office and, from what we understand, were not told all three would be included in the press release."

The governor, who unlike most of his predecessors, never served in the Legislature, and lawmakers have been at odds over policy and style since he took office in January 2003.