Gov. Mark Sanford challenged lawmakers Wednesday to cut the state’s income tax and approve his education initiatives, taking “the road less traveled in politics” to make “real reforms and changes in the way things have been for too long.”

The first-term Republican made those challenges the major theme of his third State of the State address, delivered to a joint session of the General Assembly.

He urged lawmakers to cut the state’s income tax to 4.75 percent from 7 percent and approve tax credits for parents to send their children to better schools, whether private or public.

Sanford reiterated what he called the “underlying precept of this administration,” which is “to thrive economically and academically.” But to do that, he said, “things have to change.”

For the first 20 minutes of the nearly hourlong speech, there was some question as to whether Sanford was giving a State of the State or a State of the Union address.

Much of the first 10 pages of the 24-page speech dealt with national and international issues, from the dangers of inflation to the emerging strength of markets and low-cost work forces in China and India.

The global aspect of the speech prompted one Republican lawmaker to scribble across the front of his copy of Sanford’s remarks: “Is this a presidential speech?”

But Sanford soon enough returned to more familiar terrain. He was generous and effusive in his praise for certain lawmakers and state officials — Democrats as well as fellow Republicans.

He also gave credit to his own administration for developing the proposals he believes are needed to lead the state into a prosperous future.

Nowhere does the state struggle more than in education, Sanford said, despite tremendous investments of cash and the efforts of teachers, principals and administrators.

“I won’t chronicle all of the challenges to our educational system,” Sanford said. “We know they’re there, but I would ask, ‘Do we?’”

Part of the answer is money, Sanford said, “but a bigger part of the solution lies in market-based reforms to the system itself.”

His plan for those reforms is the tax credit bill, dubbed by supporters as the Put Parents in Charge Act. Similar plans have worked well in such major cities as Milwaukee, Sanford said.

In Milwaukee, he said, families shed “tears of joy” when their children are accepted into the school choice system. “Can you imagine tears being shed because you got into the public school in Allendale or Marion?”

State Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, a Democrat, called that remark “a cheap shot” that minimizes the hard work and progress in those rural school systems.

When Put Parents in Charge comes up for a vote in the House and Senate — if it makes it that far — it will be a “gut-check vote,” Sanford said, “a time for choosing, I believe, on the degree to which we care about not only making changes so that our state can compete on the international playing field, but, more importantly, about making changes that can transform people’s lives.”

The bill has been introduced in the House but will not come up for debate in the Ways and Means Committee until at least March. Republicans in the House and Senate have given it a tepid reception, and its prospects are anything but assured. Democrats are almost universally opposed.

On the income tax reduction, Sanford outlined three reasons it would help create jobs in South Carolina:

• More small businesses would be created because many of them are not corporations and therefore do not pay the lower 5 percent corporate rate. Instead they pay the top 7 percent rate.

• Lower income taxes would attract more retirees, “a huge economic engine” in many parts of the state.

• More companies would seek to bring their headquarters here, not just a plant or distribution center.

“And so it is again a time for choosing, between a tax system that holds us back and a tax system that allows us to better compete with the rest of the world,” he said.

Sanford is likely to have more luck with his income tax proposal. The House could give it final approval as early as this week. Its future in the Senate is less clear, however, because many senators have been pushing for property tax relief instead.

Reaction to Sanford’s address was mixed. Most Republicans praised the speech, although Sen. John Courson, R-Richland, said Sanford will have to “learn to navigate swamps filled with alligators” to get his agenda through a skeptical General Assembly.

Senate Minority Leader John Land, D-Clarendon, said Sanford likes to believe “he is changing the mind-set” of the General Assembly, but it “comes at the expense of the problems facing our state, and it ignores the real values we represent.”

But House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, gave the governor high marks for espousing many of the same beliefs as Republicans in the House. From changes to make it tougher to file lawsuits to income tax reduction to school choice — but not necessarily Put Parents in Charge — they are on the same page, Wilkins said.

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com.