A new plan to balance the state’s budget deficit was unveiled Wednesday by Joint Finance Committee co-chair Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo.

Gard’s plan included ending credit-card spending, capping government spending, requiring taxpayers to approve increases in taxes, implementing a state employee cap and general saving.

The ultimate goal of the plan, Gard said, was to get Wisconsin out of the top ten highest taxed states in the nation.

“Our number-one priority must be controlling costs and cutting taxes,” he said.

Gard claimed his plan was more solid than the Assembly Democrats’ budget plan.

“From sales taxes to income taxes to cigarette taxes, the Assembly Democrats are rallying around massive tax hikes,” Gard said. “That’s just crazy. If these folks get their way, they will tax Wisconsin’s economy into a death spiral.”

Gard cited statistics from the State Employees Union’s survey that asked lawmakers and candidates whether they supported several tax changes including increases in the sales tax, increases in the cigarette tax, and increases in the personal income tax by limiting capital gains deductions.

“When folks up where I live chant, ‘We’re number one!’ they’re talking optimistically about the Packers’ chances, not pessimistically about our state’s tax ranking,” Gard said. “Wisconsin has the third highest tax burden in America already. If these Democrats have their way we’ll be number one with a bullet — and that bullet will kill our economy.”

Gard said since 1995, state Republicans have successfully passed income-tax cuts totaling $3.7 billion and provided nearly $8 billion in property-tax relief.

“It’s clear that the two parties have two very different visions for meeting the challenges that face our state,” he said. “The Democrats think the answer is higher taxes, the Republicans think the answer is less government spending.”

But some say Gard is unfairly blaming Democrats’ solutions. Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, called Gard’s statements inaccurate.

“Republican representative John Gard made a desperate, inaccurate attempt to divert attention from years of Republican fiscal mismanagement, which has left Wisconsin with a plummeting credit rating and a growing deficit,” Black said. “It’s another failed plan from the folks who brought you a $2.8 billion budget deficit.”

Black said Gard’s plan is reverting back to McCallum’s plan of eliminating shared revenue and increasing property taxes.

“The Assembly Republican proposal would raise property taxes by cutting aid to local government,” he said. “Last year, according to the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the Republican version of the state budget would have raised property taxes by more than $1.2 billion.”

Black said he also disagrees with Gard’s plan to cut funding to the University of Wisconsin and raise tuition without halting payment of legal fees in the state’s John Doe case investigating illegal campaigning on state time.

“Dishonesty is something we’ve come to expect at this point in the campaign season, but today’s inaccurate attack takes the cake,” he said. “The so-called sales-tax ‘increase’ they mention would actually cut the sales-tax rate to 3.5 percent for everything consumers now pay the sales tax on.”