COLUMBIA - Leaders of the Senate and House have signed off on the state budget, property tax breaks and tougher animal fighting legislation.

Those are among more than 57 bills sent to Gov. Mark Sanford's desk after being ratified Wednesday.

Plans to raise the state's sale tax in exchange for eliminating school operating expenses from property tax bills for homeowners was the year's most fought-over legislation.

'Yeah, I'll sign it,' Sanford said Tuesday.

Sanford says he has some misgiving about that. Along with the property tax break, it reduces the state's sales tax on groceries from 5 cents on the dollar to 3 cents and creates a sales tax holiday two days after Thanksgiving.

'We don't like the sale tax holiday for the two days after Thanksgiving,' Sanford said. 'If there's a way for me to get in and veto that particular component, I would.' He wasn't sure a two-day tax holiday makes the state more competitive.

The budget has been getting most of Sanford's attention this week.

He wanted the $6.6 billion spending plan on his desk last week and legislators back to work this week taking up vetoes. But Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell did not invite House Speaker Bobby Harrell to sign off on the stack of bills before the regular legislative session ended last week.

Sanford spent Tuesday on the road telling business owners in Anderson, Clinton and Orangeburg that state spending is growing by 13 percent in the fiscal year that begins July 1. He says that's a rate that can't be sustained without future budget cuts or tax increases. He was on the road Wednesday, selling the same message in Aiken, Camden, Greenwood, Rock Hill and Roebuck.

He says he would get down to the business of vetoing hundreds of millions of dollars in planned spending Wednesday night, targeting mostly items that aren't part of the state's 'core' operations.