Sanford, making tax relief his top priority for the second consecutive year, last week unveiled what looks like a carbon copy of a plan that never made it out of the Senate last year.

Like last year, the governor sees cutting taxes as a way to attract industry, compete better with neighboring states and overcome one of the country's worst unemployment rates. The state's jobless rate rose from 6.4 percent in August to 6.9 percent in September.

This "is simply the single most important thing we can do to improve our underlying business climate, create new jobs and raise income levels here in South Carolina," Sanford said in Florence while on a statewide tour to promote his five-point legislative agenda, called Contract for Change.

The tax-cut proposal seeks to gradually reduce the state's top income-tax bracket by nearly a third, from 7 percent to 4.75 percent over a six-year period. The plan last year differed only in that it sought to implement the cuts over a decade. The cuts are also conditional on the state projecting revenue gains of 2 percent or more each year. In years when this doesn't occur, there won't be any cuts.

"Of course we will be fiscally responsible. That's a given," Will Folks, a spokesman for the governor, said Monday. "We need these cuts to help our small businesses, where most of the jobs in this state come from. We need them so we won't lag behind other states. We need a tax policy that's not stuck in the 20th century."

The governor hasn't yet calculated how much the cuts would save individual taxpayers.

Michael Fields, South Carolina director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said whatever the amount, it would be welcomed.

He said most people don't realize that about 97 percent of businesses in the state have fewer than 100 workers, but unlike the big corporations that pay a 5 percent tax, small businesses pay the top personal income rate of 7 percent.

"This would be an incredible shot in the arm for small businesses," Fields said. "The state has done everything to bring big companies into the state, but a big part of economic development comes from the small ones. With the money saved from this cut, they can hire more workers and buy more equipment. That stimulates the economy in a number of ways."

But only if the plan passes.

Folks said the governor is intent on avoiding a replay of last year, when the bill was filibustered in the Senate, a practice in which opposing lawmakers talk a bill to death.

"We're also pushing for a change in the Senate rules so something like this doesn't happen. ... That's a linchpin for us," said Folks, describing another pillar of Sanford's five-point plan. The Senate was a graveyard for many of the governor's plans that passed the House.

The other three legs of the five-point plan include tort reform, broadening school choice and restructuring state government.

Rooted in Sanford's approach are classic "supply-side" economic beliefs that lowering taxes spurs growth. For example, the governor points to high growth in Florida from 1998-2002, growth he claims is linked to the fact that there is no income tax in the Sunshine State. By contrast, South Carolina withered under its 7 percent tax bracket, the highest in the country for the average taxpayer, and paid the price with job losses, according to the governor's office.

The Sanford plan is also premised on two conservative studies, one by the anti-tax, libertarian-leaning Beacon Hill group and the other by a business-backed lobbying group, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

The council, in particular, talks about how states that cut income taxes during the 1990s saw greater growth than those that didn't.

Matt Gardner, of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, said such logic was confusing the proverbial chicken with the egg. "These states were doing well and cut taxes as a result. Not the other way around," said the state tax policy director of the liberal-leaning group.

"Many of them showing surpluses in the 1990s didn't put any of that into a rainy day fund and today are running deficits," he said. "That's a danger. Even if you tie the cuts to growth, you need reserves for the bad times."

His group released data last year showing that South Carolina's "effective" tax rate -- how much a person pays after stripping out deductions and exemptions -- is a lot less than Sanford says. Depending on income, South Carolina residents pay personal income tax rates from 0.2 percent to 5.1 percent, according to the institute.

Jim Bradley, a finance professor at the University of South Carolina, goes further in saying the governor's plan misses the mark.

"Our high unemployment rate is not a product of our income tax levels. It has to do with a down economy and industry based on textiles," Bradley said. "We had the same tax structure five years ago and were growing faster than others, with an unemployment rate lower than the rest of the nation."

Bradley went on to caution that projected revenues and real revenues are not the same thing. "What happens if we fall short?" he asked.

"It serves no purpose to compare ourselves to Florida," he added. "It's not like we're going to cut taxes and miraculously get more coastline and milder weather."

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