Newington - Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Linda McMahon on Wednesday unveiled an economic plan that calls for tax cuts for businesses and the middle class, possibly affecting about half of the state's federal income tax filers.

The former wrestling executive's proposal calls for reducing the middle-class tax rate from 25 percent to 15 percent. The top affected income rate would be about $86,000 for a single filer and $143,000 for a married couple.

Economist Will McBride, of the Washington-based Tax Foundation, said such a change would affect roughly half of the 1.7 million total federal returns filed by Connecticut taxpayers. Nationally, he estimated about 27.5 million of the 104 million taxable returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service would be affected. He based his estimates on 2009 IRS tax data.

McMahon's campaign said those figures do not take into account her plan to halt possible increases in the federal tax rates, expected in 2013.

In her first news conference since she announced her second bid for the U.S. Senate, McMahon, a former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, now called WWE, again pitched herself as a successful businesswoman who knows how to "get America working again."

"It's really very simple. I'm passionate about creating the opportunity for everyone to participate in the American dream, just as I have," she told a crowd of about 80 people at the Zavarella Woodworking company in Newington. "I believe that hardworking families and small business owners here in Connecticut and around the country deserve more."

Fred Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis at the University of Connecticut, said McMahon's plan to cut taxes for the middle class will affect fewer people than it would have years ago, given the state's shrinking middle class.

"Household median income has actually been declining," he said. "We've had an increase in lower-income households. It would benefit fewer people now than it would have benefitted even two or three years ago and certainly 10 years ago. We've had a major hollowing out of the middle class in Connecticut over the last 20 to 30 years."

A spokeswoman for former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays, McMahon's main rival for the GOP endorsement, said McMahon's plan would worsen the federal deficit because it doesn't include major cuts in spending.

"McMahon's proposal makes our annual trillion-dollar deficits even worse by proposing huge tax cuts with no spending offsets," said Amanda Bergin, Shays' communications director. "This is irresponsible and politics as usual."

McMahon's plan calls for a 1 percent spending reduction each year in the federal budget, with some exceptions, such as defense spending.

Other aspects of McMahon's plan include cutting the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent and eliminating the capital gains tax for those who've been assessed at the 25 percent income tax rate.

Shortly after McMahon's event, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee took aim at her and her plan, repeating some of the criticism lodged in 2010, when McMahon lost to now-Sen. Richard Blumenthal, after spending $50 million of her own money.

"Linda McMahon is a greedy CEO who made a fortune marketing sex and violence to children, all at the expense of the health and safety of her employees," DSCC press secretary Shripal Shah said. "That's not the kind of record on jobs Connecticut is looking for, which is exactly why voters already rejected her candidacy once before."