AUGUSTA (AP) – Republican lawmakers were taking soundings Wednesday to test reaction to Gov. John Baldacci’s tax relief proposal and the potential for offering an alternative.

House Minority Leader David Bowles said GOP legislators welcomed Baldacci’s call for government spending caps – “our idea to begin with” – but hoped to broaden the governor’s plan and provide direct tax relief for all at once.

“Not everyone’s going to see property tax relief out of this plan” immediately, Bowles, R-Sanford, said to describe what Republicans find to be a shortcoming in Baldacci’s proposal.

Senate Minority Leader Paul Davis, R-Sangerville, was sharper, dismissing the governor’s package as “a bunch of foolishness.”

“He doesn’t address the spending, he doesn’t address the budget concerns we have coming up, which are profound and serious,” Davis said.

The Senate GOP leader allowed that Baldacci had at least put the issue before the Legislature.

“I applaud him for bringing tax relief to the front table,” Davis said.

Republican lawmakers planned a two-hour caucus meeting late Wednesday afternoon away from the State House in Augusta. Democratic lawmakers are scheduled to hold a caucus meeting of their own on Thursday.

Bowles said whatever Republicans come up with – if they reach agreement among themselves – would be put before the Joint Select Committee on Property Tax Relief, which met for the first time on Tuesday and which has scheduled a public hearing for next Tuesday.

The panel faces a Jan. 14 deadline for submitting its recommendations to the full Legislature and plans six work sessions before the end of the year.

The House chairman of the select committee, independent Rep. Richard Woodbury of Yarmouth, acknowledged Tuesday that the panel had developed an “ambitious schedule.”

There would be no easy breakthrough, “but it’s clear that the status quo is not good enough,” he said.

Sen. Richard Rosen, R-Bucksport, suggested that the quality of its final product should be more important to the committee than its timetable for action. Sen. Peter Mills, R-Cornville, meanwhile, said he hoped the panel would not be “shackled” to only proposals put forth by the Baldacci administration.

Baldacci is also due to submit a two-year budget plan to the Legislature by Jan. 7.

and has said he plans to provide an extra $250 million for local schools over the coming biennium to ease the pressure on local property tax levies.

To raise the additional money, Baldacci may draw on some of the $94 million in higher than anticipated state revenue that was projected by the state of Maine Revenue Forecasting Committee in its Dec. 1 report to Baldacci and the Legislature.

Baldacci, resistant to broad-based tax increases, is also counting on some of that money to boost funding for Maine’s circuitbreaker program that offers property tax relief based on income eligibility.

The circuitbreaker program, which has been in place since 1972, aids Maine residents whose property taxes exceed 4 percent of their household income.

As acting State Tax Assessor Jerome Gerard told members of the select committee on Tuesday, currently the benefit amount totals 50 percent of property taxes that are more than 4 percent but less than 8 percent of income, plus 100 percent of property taxes that are more than 8 percent of income.

Income eligibility maximums are $30,300 for single-member households and $46,900 for multiple-member households.