A menu of tax increase options for shrinking the state's $6.4 billion deficit was set before Minnesotans this week by DFL legislators, despite Gov. Tim Pawlenty's insistence that he will reject every item. On it are higher taxes on either top incomes or all incomes; sales of cigarettes, alcohol, iTunes, used boats and snowmobiles; and business property. Low-income renters and homeowners would also take a property tax hit.

That lengthy list is split unevenly into two very different bills. The House offers lighter and more varied fare, raising $1.5 billion over two years; the Senate's high-calorie counterpart raises $2.2 billion, mostly with an income tax increase that every Minnesotan would feel, though is tilted toward high-end earners.

Minnesotans keeping score shouldn't tally Pawlenty at $0. His budget raises new revenue, too -- not directly, but via $1 billion in borrowing against future state taxes and deep state aid cuts to cities and counties that are projected to trigger more than $500 million in property tax increases. Pawlenty's borrowing plan has been likened to taking out a second mortgage to buy groceries -- never a good idea.

Tax hikes are but one of the budget-balancing strategies this newspaper favors. Sizable spending cuts are also necessary in the face of the largest state budget shortfall in modern times. To their credit, the Legislature's DFL majorities both propose to more than match their tax increases with spending reductions, and in both cases, the cuts exceed those recommended by Pawlenty.

Of the three -- House, Senate and governor-- the House bill offers the most interesting tax stew. Its use of both sales and income taxes beats both borrowing and big property tax hikes. Its more modest size would go down easier in a fragile economy than the Senate's hefty version would. The House bill calls for more fundamental tax reform. It also goes after "sin" -- smoking and drinking -- with tax increases that would only partially recoup the costs taxpayers bear for illness, injury and crime brought on by consumption of those products. Those changes could rightly be called user fees -- in fact, the 2005 cigarette tax increase carries that label in statute. While regressive, that tax is also a powerful deterrent to use of a life-shortening drug.

Yet both of the DFL-crafted tax bills miss the most obvious opportunity for reform this year -- an extension of the sales tax to clothing and consumer-purchased services. The House's bill's elimination of a few sales tax exemptions barely begins to make the sales tax a more robust and reliable contributor to the state's revenue stream.

Economists including Art Rolnick of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve caution against overreliance on the personal income tax, which has the effect of discouraging savings and sapping the cash reserves of small businesses whose profits are counted as their owners' personal incomes for tax purposes. Taxing consumer -- not business -- consumption is simpler, more transparent and better suited to a time when more savings and small business growth are needed.

A clothing sales tax need not hit low and middle earners harder than the wealthy, Rolnick notes. It can be structured to tax the purchase of a $1,000 suit more heavily than a $40 thrift-store model.

Instead of expanding the sales tax, both DFL bills create a new tax bracket for high-end earners, and assign to it tax rates high enough to make Minnesota an outlier among the states. By comparison, 40 states already tax clothing purchases. Joining that pack would cause nary a competitive ripple -- and in the economy of today and tomorrow, competition matters.

The table is set for this session's final course -- a choice between state tax increases or one-time measures and higher local property taxes. If a broader sales tax were among the state tax increases, it would be our preference.