The state budget deficit should be corrected with about $3 in spending cuts for every $2 in tax increases, Senate DFL leaders said Thursday as they jumped ahead of the customary legislative schedule and presented a rough outline of a budget-balancing plan.

The senators deserve credit for their timeliness, and for their attention to erasing a structural gap between revenues and expenditures that has plagued Minnesota since 2002. A budget trends study group reported earlier this year that as much as 40 percent of Minnesota's big budget gap forecast for 2010-11 can be traced not to the recession, but to a built-in demand for state services, particularly health care, that is outpacing the current tax system's ability to generate revenue.

While the Senate majority's leaders argue for taking full advantage of the one-time money from the federal government this year, they also aim to take lasting steps this year to correct the built-in problem. Commendably, they want to end this session with a budget that's forecast to be balanced through 2013. That translated into reductions in forecasted spending in the next two years slightly larger than GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed -- $2.4 billion, as compared with $2.3 billion -- and permanent tax increases of $2 billion over the next two years.

But senators are also picking a partisan fight with this budget, over both taxes and education spending. Pawlenty and his GOP allies are opposed to any tax increase; Pawlenty's January budget relied on a school aid payment delay and borrowing against future state revenues to keep spending cuts in league with the DFLers' numbers.

Senate tax chair Tom Bakk indicated that his preference is to use an income tax increase on upper-income earners to raise the $2 billion in new revenue. That's the tax that GOP legislators and the governor are most inclined to resist.

The Republicans have also staked out support for a modest increase in K-12 education funding, even as the governor recommended a sizable cut in higher education, early childhood education spending, aid to cities and health and human services programs. The Senate's budget makes no such attempt to spare some spending categories at the expense of others. Every major item in the state budget would be in for a 7 percent cut under the Senate's plan.

Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller defended the decision not to set spending priorities as a preference for broadly shared sacrifice. But it can also be seen as a failure to set a strategy for economic recovery. On this score, House DFLers might part company with their Senate counterparts. With revisions to the governor's budget due out next week, pressure is mounting on the House majority to tip its hand too. It should do so soon, in what is shaping up to be the most important state budget in many a year.

LORI STURDEVANT