CARY Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue said Saturday that she was prepared to protect North Carolina's position as the progressive leader of the South, despite budget cutbacks by the Republican legislative leadership that she said could leave the Tar Heel state trailing Mississippi.

Appearing at a Democratic fundraising breakfast, Perdue said the Republican House budget that will be voted on this week would result in 30,000 public employees being laid off.

"We are about to see the largest public layoff in North Carolina and maybe in American history," Perdue told about 350 people at a Jefferson-Jackson Democratic party breakfast at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Cary.

She drew her loudest cheers and whistles from the partisan crowd when she said she was prepared to veto a Republican bill requiring voters to produce photo identification at the polls. She later added that her staff is trying to work out a compromise with the Republicans on the bill.

The comments by Perdue and others suggested a hardening of the political lines as the state's leaders try to devise a budget to deal with a shortfall, variously estimated at between $1.9 billion and $2.5 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

The criticism against Republicans was some of the most hard-edged heard in recent years at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner events, the Democrats' annual main fundraiser. It reflects Democratic frustration with the first Republican-controlled legislature since the 1800s and its conservative agenda.

Perdue had earlier put forth a budget that had significant but less-deep cuts, and proposed 10,000 layoffs. It included a partial extension of a temporary sales tax increase of $826.6 million, a move opposed by the Republican legislature.

Responding to the Democratic criticism, state Republican Party spokesman Mark Braden said, "While Governor Perdue believes $1.4 billion in more taxes, more spending and more government jobs are the solution to North Carolina's economic problems, Republicans are living in reality and have put forward a fact-based and common-sense budget proposal that will allow the private sector to flourish and create jobs while ensuring our state's classrooms are fully funded."

The Democrats gathered all day, holding a breakfast in Cary, an executive committee in the afternoon, and a $100-per-plate fundraising dinner at the Raleigh Convention Center in the evening, featuring New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, which about 600 people were expected to attend.

Perdue has vetoed a series of Republican bills in recent weeks, and she received a hero's welcome among the Democrats.

The governor said the Democrats had been willing to make the tough fiscal decisions, including making $2.4 billion in budget cuts during the past two years when they controlled both the governorship and the legislature. But she said the Republicans are proposing to go too far, particularly in cutting into the state's educational institutions, including the UNC and community college systems, which have helped make North Carolina a leader in the South.

She portrayed her showdown with the legislature as a historic fight that goes well beyond mere Democratic-Republican differences.

"We are writing the history that people will read in the next hundred years," Perdue said. "I refuse to be written down as the governor who turned North Carolina backwards and drove us to the bottom under Mississippi."