“There is no silver bullet here,” Secretary of Finance Richard “Ric” Brown said Monday. “There are hard choices here, whether it’s core service cuts or tax preferences.”

The General Assembly will consider the proposals as it looks for ways to fill a $322 million hole in the two-year budget that the governor and legislators already have reduced by more than $2 billion through spending cuts and reliance on the state rainy day fund.

“It’s certainly a first step,” said House Appropriations Chairman S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, who has been briefed on the proposals. “I’d rather have seen more permanent changes than one-time fixes.”

“I can appreciate what they’re trying to do in the short term,” Jones said, “but it doesn’t do anything to address the long-term liabilities.”

The state legislative watchdog agency and money committee staffs say tax credits and preferences are costing Virginia billions in revenue, sometimes with little quantifiable result.

“The effectiveness of tax preferences designed to promote specific activities appears to be mixed,” the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission said in a 2012 study of the issue.