Republican legislative leaders attacked Gov. Mark Dayton's proposed budget as a job-killing, tax-raising plan that has little or no hope of being enacted.

"I don't want to say it's dead on arrival, but it doesn't have much of a heartbeat," said Deputy Senate Majority Leader Geoff Michel, R-Edina. He called Dayton's proposed income tax increase for the highest-earning Minnesotans "just breathtaking in its scope."

House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, called it "a feeble and pathetic attempt to go back in time" and "very disappointing."

Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, called Dayton's proposed tax increases "the largest tax increase ever proposed" by a Minnesota governor and that they're out of step with nearly every other governor in the nation. If enacted, the increases would leave Minnesota with the highest income tax rate in the nation, she added.

Koch said her fellow GOP leaders "were a little taken aback" by the size of the proposed tax increase. "These tax increases are not going to be acceptable to the House and the Senate," she said.

Zellers said Dayton's plan would stifle job creation in ther state, predicting "you're not goingto see any [business] expansion in the state."

He offered this message to small business owners, who he said would be disproportionately hurt by higher taxes: "Don't worry -- we're here for you. We're not going to let Mark Dayton tax you out of the state."

Members of the GOP leadership team are taking their anti-tax message on the road Wednesday, in a fly-around to five cities.

The state Republican Party also blasted Dayton's budget plan, branding it as "deeply irresponsible," and would, if adopted, "destroy jobs, hurt our economy and make our state less competitive."