Minnesota Senate taxes chairman Tom Bakk made a move Thursday worthy of the gubernatorial candidate that he is. The Cook DFLer proposed extending the state sales tax to clothing, paired with the promise of a lower overall sales tax rate beginning in July 2011 and a plan to repay schools the money they are losing this year.

This is a good idea, for a lot of reasons. Let us count the ways:

•Minnesota needs more revenue to do government's work well in the short term. The fact that the state is now delaying payments to school districts -- whose mission every lawmaker claims as a top priority -- without a plan to catch up should be an alarming sign of fiscal distress. Minnesota shouldn't stop exploring creative ways to constrain government spending. But the fiscal gap created by the Great Recession is too large to bridge with spending cuts and creativity alone.

•Bakk's plan would apply new revenue where it's needed most. It would go a quarter of the way to erasing the $1 billion deficit in the current state budget in its first year.

After that first year, Bakk proposes to reduce the overall sales tax rate a quarter of a percentage point, then dedicate the remaining proceeds of the clothing tax to a 10-year repayment plan for schools. That would help stabilize shaky school budgets. When that money is repaid, a future Legislature and governor could consider a further rate reduction.

•In opting for eliminating a sales tax exemption on a category of consumer purchases, rather than raising the income tax or the overall sales tax rate, Bakk is treading lightly on the state's businesses. Businesses pay about 40 cents of every sales tax dollar in this state, and small businesses are often taxed via the personal income tax returns of their owners. That explains the business lobby's hostility to an income tax or sales tax rate increase. It's notable that the business reaction Thursday to Bakk's idea was muted.

•The choice of a clothing tax is also appropriately sensitive to Minnesota's competitive position among the states. Minnesota is one of only four states that exempt clothing from their sales taxes.

•Bakk has well-established credentials as a promoter of progressive taxation, unafraid to sponsor a major income tax increase -- even as he set out to run for governor last year. His 2009 tax bill was vetoed.

But this year, Bakk has opted for pragmatism and an approach tinged with bipartisanship. For years, the Senate's strongest advocate for extending the sales tax to clothing was Republican Sen. Bill Belanger of Bloomington. The idea was also floated last year by the 21st Century Tax Commission, appointed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, as a tradeoff for lower business taxes. Bakk's move away from his personal policy preference to something designed to meet the GOP halfway is the gesture of someone serious about getting past gridlock to governance at the statehouse.

We're not sanguine about the chances for Bakk's idea to win favor in the governor's office. Pawlenty's refusal to raise any tax, no matter the reason, is well-known. But by proposing business tax cuts that would erode future state budgets, without proposing new revenues or equivalent permanent spending cuts, Pawlenty is asking the 2010 Legislature to leave state government on financially weakened footing, less able to adequately meet Minnesota's needs. Bakk's proposal, by comparison, would build a stronger fiscal foundation for the future.