Politics seldom affords its practitioners second chances. Gov. Tim Pawlenty can count himself lucky. He's been granted a do-over at leading Minnesota safely through a supersized state budget deficit.

On Tuesday, Pawlenty will announce how he wants Minnesota to set to rights the 2010-11 budget. It now looks to be $5 billion, or 14 percent, short of the revenue its existing programs need to operate. A fat stimulus check from the federal government could shrink that figure, maybe by more than $1 billion. But the scary spike in the state's unemployment rate is working in the other direction.

If the Pawlenty governorship were a continuously running movie, he'd be justified in announcing, "This is where I came in," and going home. He's seen this before. So has Minnesota.

In 2003, the Republican governor came to office with a $4.5 billion deficit and a freshly minted promise not to raise taxes ever, period, amen. That deficit came in part from his mint, too. Pawlenty was House Republican majority leader before he was governor. He had a hand in big tax cuts in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and in a budget fix in 2002 that relied on Band-Aids and chewing gum that couldn't hold.

The new governor had his way with the 2003 Legislature, which enacted a fix largely of Pawlenty's design. Or, more to today's point, Pawlenty relied on government's existing design. He just forced the big rig to run on less fuel.

The results weren't good. Government services of all kinds sputtered.

Tuition at public colleges spiked; so did property taxes. Big-city crime rose as police forces shrank. Fewer Minnesotans could afford health insurance or child care. K-12 class sizes rose; poor and minority kids' school performance lagged.

Some of ill effects of the 2003 budget fix are still being felt, even as the Panic of 2008 starts to feel like the Return of 1932. Whack the state budget in the same way again, and the quality of life for middle- and lower-income Minnesotans will take a fearsome hit. So will the state's best asset in its bid for prosperity in the global high-tech economy -- its educated workforce.

This time, Pawlenty needs to give this movie a better ending.

The governor has been saying for weeks that he has something other than meat-ax cuts in mind. Government "redesign" is the rage at the Capitol. There's been lots of talk of saving money through "shared services" in the "backroom operations" of state and local governments. Pawlenty is said to admire the Association of Minnesota Counties' idea for replacing spending mandates with outcome requirements and block grants, and letting local officials decide how best to do the work.

This is promising stuff, even if its immediate payoff doesn't run into nine figures.

Less obviously beneficial to the state's sagging bottom line is his proposal to cut corporate taxes by as much as $500 million. It's a supply-side economic leap of faith, at a time when tax cuts are no longer politically in vogue as the all-purpose remedy for every economic problem.

Then again, the corporate income tax is a headache for the state -- highly volatile, expensive to collect, too easily dodged, too burdensome to workers and consumers.

"It's a very inefficient tax," said Art Rolnick, the senior vice president at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. "Anytime is a good time to fix a bad policy."

Even when you have to cut education or health care to pay for it?

"I'd make it revenue-neutral. Replace it by expanding the sales tax to clothing and food," and give low-income people a credit to keep the change from hurting those least able to afford it. "We cannot afford to cut back on public expenditures on things that have a high rate of return." That would include early education (Rolnick's favorite example), K-12, higher education, infrastructure and a good share of state's health care spending.

Let's call that the Rolnick Rule for state budgeteers. Look carefully at the long-term rate of return on all government spending. If the return on a program or category is low or nil, cut. If the return is as high or higher than what the private sector can produce over time, don't be afraid to tax and spend. Your grandchildren will thank you for it.

Pawlenty let a 2002 campaign promise be his budget-balancing guide in 2003. The precious gift of a second chance deserves better than a worn-out, seven-year-old strategy. The Rolnick Rule should be a prominent feature in Big Budget Fix 2.0.

Lori Sturdevant is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.