A day after Gov. Mark Sanford’s tuition tax credit plan passed a House committee in a much scaled-back form, lawmakers are vowing to kill the bill or resurrect it.

Whichever happens, there’s bound to be a tense fight on the House floor about the direction of the plan that would give parents tax breaks to send their children to private school.

Many say they’re glad to get it to the full House. Members of the Ways and Means Committee had been under intense pressure.

Supporters had advertised against lawmakers and threatened to campaign against Republicans who voted against the bill.

“It’s positive that we’ll have a full debate on it,” said House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville.

Lawmakers came within one vote of killing the measure during a committee meeting Monday.

The original bill, dubbed “Put Parents in Charge,” would have allowed parents statewide to take a tax credit for home-school expenses or to send their children to private school or another public school.

Instead, the House Ways and Means Committee agreed to a compromise that would allow the Education Department to set up a pilot program in two districts — one rich and one poor.

Another amendment limits tax-deductible donations for scholarships to $10,000.

Lawmakers remain bitterly divided over what to do now.

“It’s super they provided a vehicle for debate on the floor,” said Majority Leader Jim Merrill, R-Charleston, a supporter of the original bill. “The (pilot) proposal was garbage.”

Others say any version of tax credits would be a move in the wrong direction.

“If all this energy were being spent on our current public schools, they wouldn’t be in the condition they’re in now,” said Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland.

Many said it would be difficult for some lawmakers — particularly Republicans — to vote against the bill now.

Many Republicans had criticized the original bill for being too sweeping and untested. They feared it would drain too much money from the state’s $5.8 billion budget. The amendments, for some, alleviated both concerns.

“I will probably vote for the version that Ways and Means passed,” said Rep. Michael Thompson, R-Anderson, who had opposed the bill because of its impact on the budget.

But others, unhappy with the watered-down version, vowed to restore the bill to something closer to the original.

Many want to set up a voucher program for low-income students and a tax credit for wealthier families whose children attend failing schools. An amendment that would do that failed in a tie vote Monday.

The current bill “doesn’t put anybody in charge except the Department of Education,” said Rep. Lewis Vaughn, R-Greenville, a longtime tax credit backer.

Bill supporters say the voucher and tax credit would give more parents a chance to put their children in better schools. That was the point of Sanford’s bill, they said.

“We’ll make every effort to get the bill back to its original form,” said Rep. Tracy Edge, R-Horry.

Sanford spokesman Will Folks said any expansion would be better than what passed the committee.

“Hopefully, we would get back to where we were to begin with,” he said, “which is a plan that materially expanded parents’ right to choose in South Carolina.”

Reach Talhelm at (803) 771-8339 or jtalhelm@thestate.com