We should balance the budget without gimmicks and gradually restore the drastic cuts we have made. We should continue to seek efficiencies and hope to benefit from an energy recovery. But the starting point is to undo some of the $2 billion of tax cuts and subsidies that we doled out. Since $1 billion of that came from income tax cuts, which are a (misplaced) article of faith in the Legislature, we will have to look instead at the subsidies we handed out to select industries and bring our excise tax rates closer to other states. And, we should require internet sellers to remit the same taxes that our local shopkeepers collect, to eliminate their current 8 percent to 10 percent disadvantage.