It has been his mantra for five days now:

“I don’t think anyone is totally happy with this budget,” House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino repeated during a particularly morose afternoon budget briefing with lawmakers.

The widespread displeasure was apparent yesterday, as Governor Carcieri took to the campaign trail to blast both unions and legislators, the unions unveiled a multimedia campaign to blast back, and news surfaced that a bloc of Democrats has joined forces to oppose elements of the Assembly’s own spending plan.

The full House of Representatives will vote on the fiscal 2008 budget on Friday.

House spokesman Larry Berman confirmed that legislative leaders had received a petition late last week signed by 15 senators and 9 representatives — all Democrats — urging the Democratic leadership to approve a 3-percent increase in state education aid and to restore the capital gains tax to 5 percent, among other things. The legislative budget that cleared the House Finance Committee last week gives no increase in education aid and freezes the capital gains tax at 1.67 percent.

“We believe that these suggestions will ameliorate much of what was oppressive in the original proposed budget and provide that all of our citizens have the tools they need to lead safe, healthy and productive lives,” reads the letter addressed to the House speaker and Senate president. “We are committed to helping our most needful citizens and to maintaining our public education system. We recognize our responsibility to advance reasonable revenue enhancements to respond to those commitments.”

Berman said last night that the leadership had no immediate reaction to the petition.

The restoration of the capital gains tax to 5 percent — less than Massachusetts’ 5.3 percent rate, supporters note — would raise an estimated $39 million next year, according to Ellen Frank, chief economist for the Poverty Institute.

Rep. David Segal, D-Providence, was among the Democratic lawmakers who signed the petition. “If the argument is that we’re trying to get people to invest in our state, then spending an extra $20 million in education is an investment we should make,” he said of the 3-percent increase in education aid stripped from the House budget proposal. “If Providence doesn’t see some more funding, the city’s going to be talking about double-digit tax increases.”

And while Segal said he hadn’t decided how to vote on Friday, another Democratic lawmaker said he’d likely support the budget despite serious concerns over education aid and only a partial restoration of cuts to social service programs.

“This isn’t a Democratic budget by any means. This is a Republican budget. Let’s face it,” said Tom Slater, D-Providence, who did not sign the petition and said yesterday he wasn’t aware of it. “I would never have set up a budget like this.”

Then why did he vote for it in the House Finance Committee meeting last week?

“Because it’s a give-and-take process. If you want items, you have to give up items,” he said, declining to be more specific.

Indeed, the budget that House members will be asked to support Friday actually costs state taxpayers slightly less than the proposal released by the governor in January. The House spending plan costs $3.40 billion in general revenue, while the governor’s proposal would have cost $3.42 billion.

And while the House Finance Committee restored money to some social service programs, many of the governor’s initial cuts remained.

An estimated 2,100 children stand to lose state-subsidized health care. And while 18- to 21-year-olds will continue to receive state benefits, the program’s budget was cut in half.

Governor Carcieri, who launched a media campaign this week opposing the budget, took his message to the Slade’s Ferry Business Center in Warwick yesterday morning.

“The issue right now is getting our fiscal house under control,” the governor told 19 business leaders at a special meeting of the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce. He criticized proposals in the House budget that would freeze the capital gains tax — previously set to be eliminated next year — and close a series of perceived corporate loopholes.

“The General Assembly, I credit them, I worked with them and we put in place major tax reforms for the first time: the flat tax, eliminating the cap gains tax, the car tax phasing out, the caps on property taxes. We’ve done all these things,” Carcieri said. “We just made all of this progress these last few years, the last thing we should be doing is backsliding on this.”

The governor wouldn’t use the word “veto,” but said: “If it stays the way it is, I can’t support it. Let’s see what happens this week.”

Carcieri also refused to back off his plan to lay off 1,000 state employees. He acknowledged that his administration had yet to identify where the cuts would come prior to his surprise announcement late last week.

“We’re scheduling times throughout July and August — going to be a hard-working summer — with every single department to say, ‘OK, if we’re going to reduce the work force by 1,000 people, how do we do it in each department? How much can we do? What’s the management structure?’ All these things,” Carcieri told the business leaders.

Meanwhile, the largest state union disclosed plans to launch a radio and television advertising campaign blasting the governor’s proposed layoffs and plans to expand privatization to all state services possible.

“Privatization is so out of control that the Carcieri administration is now investigating itself,” reads the script of the radio advertisement that begins running today. “Call the governor and your legislators today — tell them ‘No to layoffs and no to privatization.’ ”

The state teachers union will continue running separate advertisements all week urging the Assembly to rescind a bill that capped the maximum annual increase to a community’s tax levy at 5.25 percent this year.

Rep. John J. Loughlin II, R-Tiverton, acknowledged the tense atmosphere across Smith Hill in the days leading up to the House vote on the budget.

“Funerals are much more joyous,” he said of the mood in the legislators’ afternoon budget briefing. “I think everybody knows how bad it is.”

With contributions from Journal Staff Writer Scott MacKay

speoples@projo.com