New Yorkers with taxable incomes of more than $40,000 would save money under a tax cut plan unveiled yesterday by a Republican candidate for governor, John Faso.

Under Mr. Faso’s plan, the highest tax rate – 6.85% – would kick in when taxable income reaches $80,000, rather than the $40,000 now on the books. Finance experts say that translates into a maximum savings of $380 a year.

Speaking in Manhattan yesterday, Mr. Faso also outlined plans for counties to control Medicaid and said he favors only limited use of eminent domain. In polls, Mr. Faso is running neck-and-neck against a former Massachusetts governor, William Weld, but has been viewed as the longshot.

“I think New Yorkers like fighters and they like underdogs, and we’re going to give them a real choice,” Mr. Faso said at a breakfast forum that marked the start of a busy day for the underdogs in the race for governor.

In the state capitol, the Democratic upstart, Thomas Suozzi, took on both parties – saying the Democratic speaker of the Assembly and the Republican majority leader of the state Senate should resign.

Mr. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, told a panel on government reform: “The current leadership in Albany has had more than ample opportunity to heed the message of reform and address the problems New Yorkers face. But they have spent far more energy making backroom deals to protect their own majorities.”

The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, brushed off Mr. Suozzi’s comments. “Desperate candidates say desperate things. That’s all it is,” Mr. Silver, a Democrat of Manhattan who supports Mr. Spitzer, said.

Mr. Suozzi also received a perhaps unwelcome boost from a Republican yesterday when a top aide to Governor Pataki, Charles Gargano, told the editorial board of The New York Sun that Mr. Suozzi “would have been a strong candidate as a Republican.”

The Sun reported last week that Mr. Suozzi turned down Republican efforts to have him switch parties. Democratic primary voters don’t necessarily take well to candidates who Republicans like, and Mr. Suozzi’s campaign has struggled to gain traction.

Mr. Suozzi’s criticism of the Albany establishment was his boldest effort yet to capture public attention and separate himself from Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who has barely acknowledged Mr. Suozzi’s candidacy. Mr. Suozzi has always presented himself as an outsider. By taking the strategy a step further – knowing that no other candidate will follow him – Mr. Suozzi is hoping voters will find his “throw the bums out” mantra uniquely compelling.

Mr. Suozzi’s broadside against the Albany establishment comes three weeks before the Democratic convention in Buffalo, where even he expects to fall short of the 25% vote tally needed to force a primary. Mr. Suozzi has said he will go through the alternate process of circulating petitions to put himself on the ballot, and literally stand outside the convention halls and appeal to Democratic activists.

Messrs. Suozzi and Faso face uphill battles over the coming months, but Mr. Faso is in a stronger position because he still has a chance of winning support from 25% of the delegates at this month’s GOP convention on Long Island. If Mr. Faso fails to hit that threshold, he’ll also wind up hunting for petition signatures.

Mr. Faso’s tax plan comes more than a month after Mr. Weld unveiled a plan to eliminate the state’s personal income tax for New Yorkers making up to $75,000 – but provides no tax relief for those earning more than that.

Changing the tax tier is not a new idea. Mr. Pataki proposed having the highest rate kick in when taxable income hits $60,000, but that proposal went nowhere.

At yesterday’s breakfast, Mr. Faso boasted that he has a stronger grasp on New York issues than Mr. Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Faso described a plan to give counties control over Medicaid – and said Mr. Weld’s Medicaid plan relied on “Massachusetts math.”

Mr. Faso said he would cut property taxes, business taxes, and personal income taxes and also bring debt under control.

“Those are both good solid ideas and they are long overdue,” the director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, E.J. McMahon, said of Mr. Faso’s tax plan. “He’s always been in the forefront of income tax reform. I think he’s been the strongest supply-sider in the Legislature.”

The head of the Fiscal Policy Institute, Frank Mauro, said Mr. Faso only addressed a small piece of the tax structure system. Both experts criticized an earlier proposal of Mr. Faso’s to expand the school tax relief, or STAR, program.

In the wide-ranging question session, Mr. Faso reiterated his opposition to gay marriage and government funding of abortions for poor women and said he wanted more charter schools and a larger education tax credit. He said he favors eminent domain in some cases, but that property owners need to be protected from government seizures.

Mr. Faso wants to allow local governments to design their own Medicaid benefit programs, and he wants to let local prosecutors to handle fraud cases. But Democrats charged that giving counties the power to modify Medicaid benefits would likely lead to cuts for services for the poorest populations.

“It would open the door to eliminating components of health care and to drastically restricting access,” the chairman of the Assembly’s Health Committee, Richard Gottfried, said.