As per usual, the beauty of the state Senate’s budget plan depends upon the party of the beholder.

Sen. Robert Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, called the $62.2 billion budget that passed the Senate Wednesday evening “an adequate package for extremely difficult times.”

His GOP colleague, Sen. Neal Kedzie of Elkhorn, denounced it as “a tax-and-spend budget” with few bright spots.

The saga continues.

Both the Assembly and Senate have now passed budgets that close the state’s $6.6 billion shortfall. But because their respective plans have key differences, a conference committee may well have to reconcile the discrepancies and bring both chambers back for another vote.

The Senate is set to reconvene Tuesday.

Wirch said he believes the Senate accomplished some positive change with its budget, considering current economic conditions.

“It’s painful anytime you have to lay off a lot of good employees, put people on furlough, cut out important programs,” Wirch said. “It’s a painful exercise, but it’s necessary to do that in these difficult times.”

Kedzie, who represents the western Kenosha County town of Wheatland, countered he believes the cuts did not go deep enough.

“The budget, in and of itself, increases spending by a little more than 6 percent,” Kedzie said. “There are 21 more policy provisions and 24 earmarks, or pork, that will cost another $28 million the state does not have.”

Wirch said the 6 percent spending increase figure represents a rhetorical game on the part of Republicans.

That number, he said, takes into account federal stimulus awards that are intended to be spent immediately. The Senate plan actually spends $900 million less in general purpose revenue than the last budget, Wirch said.

“(Republicans) always talk about cutting the size of government,” Wirch said. “We cut the size of government, and they’re still not happy.”

Among the diversions the Senate made from the Assembly’s plan is the elimination of an oil industry tax, in favor of repealing capital gains tax breaks.

Wirch said he was comfortable with that move, which he noted will bring Wisconsin in line with its neighboring states.

“We had a bad series of choices,” Wirch said. “As gas prices are going up around the state, we felt it would be the wrong decision to add four more cents tax on that, and I believe there are legitimate questions about the oil franchise fee and it would be tied up in court.

“So we felt that the capital gains was a better alternative.”

As final negotiations ensue, Wirch said he will keep an eye on a series of Kenosha-related budget provisions that passed the Assembly and Senate.

These include the creation of a Kenosha Development Opportunity Zone that could provide up to $5 million in tax credits to businesses that locate in the established area, $700,000 in grant funding to help start a Pleasant Prairie biotechnology business “incubator” and aid to the county for Brookside Care Center and mental health placements.

— David Walter contributed to this report.