The Republican candidate for the Senate from New York, Howard Mills, sounded a classic conservative note last week by offering up a plan to cut federal taxes by $36 billion a year. As he traveled the state, touting the proposal to anyone who would listen, Mr. Mills declared that no issue distinguishes him more clearly from the Democratic incumbent, Senator Schumer, than taxes.

“Chuck Schumer has raised taxes at every opportunity and has never, ever passed up the opportunity to vote against a tax cut,” he said in a telephone interview. “Simply put, Chuck Schumer believes New Yorkers don’t pay enough federal taxes. I believe New Yorkers pay too much.”

Mr. Mills, a state Assemblyman from Orange County, released his proposal a few days after a Quinnipiac poll found him receiving support from just 13% of registered voters – fully 49 points behind Mr. Schumer, and only four points ahead of the Conservative candidate, Dr. Marilyn O’Grady.

The details of Mr. Mills’s plan, however, won’t necessarily warm the cockles of conservatives’ hearts. In fact, he took many of its key components from left-of-center think tanks, including the Progressive Policy Institute, which is affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council, and the Tax Policy Center, which is sponsored by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.

If this puts Mr. Mills somewhere to the right of Mr. Schumer, it’s not very far. The DLC, which promotes centrist policies, is endorsing Senator Kerry for president and includes in its membership such mainstream Democrats as President Clinton, Senator Clinton, Attorney General Spitzer, the president of the Bronx, Adolfo Carrion, and Representatives Joseph Crowley and Gregory Meeks of Queens.

To be sure, Mr. Mills wholeheartedly endorses the sweeping tax cuts sponsored by President Bush in 2001 and unreservedly supports making them permanent – a position few Democrats, centrist or otherwise, would take.

Mr. Schumer, by contrast, voted against most of the Bush tax cuts, and supported a budget plan that replaced part of the tax cuts with higher federal aid for the states.

Mr. Mills also proposes to offset the revenue lost from his new tax cuts by cutting federal spending, a concept that will appeal to fiscal conservatives concerned about the ballooning deficit. But he makes no bones about going outside the GOP for the nuts and bolts of his plan.

“I did that deliberately, because I wanted to make that a proposal that would attract bipartisan support,” Mr. Mills told The New York Sun. “Borrowing ideas that are well respected on both sides helps that.”

So how would this bipartisan plan work?

It begins by taking two proposals favored by anti-tax hawks – abolishing the alternative minimum tax and abolishing the tax on capital gains – but then limiting them to the middle class.

The alternative minimum tax was created in 1969 to prevent wealthier taxpayers from sheltering too much of their income. Because it was never indexed for inflation, it is gradually biting taxpayers of more modest means. Hard-core tax-cutters want to abolish it completely. Mr. Mills proposes simply to wipe it out for households with less than $100,000 in income – and adjust that figure every year to reflect the rising cost of living.

Similarly, some conservatives would do away with the income tax on capital gains, as a way of encouraging investment that spurs economic growth. Mr. Mills, more modestly, would make the first $10,000 in capital gains tax-free for individuals making less than $75,000 and married couples under $125,000.

Finally, he proposes to double the $400 tax deduction for teachers who spend their own money on classroom supplies – an idea that originated, unsurprisingly, from the National Education Association.

“This is an enhancement to the Bush tax cut,” Mr. Mills explained. “I believe that by cutting taxes for the middle class you grow the economy, because those people will then spend the money.”

The plan got a cool reception from a fiscal policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute, E.J. McMahon. Mr. McMahon argued that tax cuts targeted to the middle class – as opposed to across-the-board cuts – will ultimately shift money out of New York. Because this state has more than its share of wealthy taxpayers, and pays more in federal taxes than it gets back in aid, it would effectively subsidize the middle-class tax breaks of poorer states, Mr. McMahon said. Mr. McMahon also argued that targeted tax breaks unnecessarily muddy an already complex tax code.

“What you’re basically saying is, ‘I’ve got any extra form for the middle class to fill out,’ he said.

Unlike Mr. Kerry, who proposes to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for his middle-class tax cuts, Mr. Mills is proposing to cut federal spending by $42 billion. Theoretically, this could cover all of his tax cuts and still reduce the federal deficit by $5 billion.

Here, too, Mr. Mills would cut spending in ways that many Democrats would embrace. He calls for an across-the-board cut of 5% in Mr. Bush’s budget, but exempts Social Security, Medicare, the military, and education. The majority of his savings would come from doing away with corporate welfare ($20 billion) and closing “loopholes” in the corporate tax code ($5 billion). Of his 10 proposed budget cuts, nine come from the Progressive Policy Institute.

“This is a very peculiar policy paper coming from a Republican candidate,” Mr. McMahon said. “It seems designed to give Schumer nothing to disagree with.” But maybe Mr. Mills’s thinking isn’t so hard to understand. He is running for office in a state where there are five Democrats for every three Republicans. Evidently he is modeling his campaign strategy on that of Governor Pataki, a Republican who twice won re-election by reaching across party lines. The question is whether he can pull it off without losing even more of his base to the Conservative Party.