California Insider

The treasurer gets 67 percent of the vote from the party's convention delegates.

In advance of the governor's revised budget next month, I'd like to take (and post) suggestions for how you think the state should spend, or not spend, the windfall that has come in to tax collectors this month. Let's start with the conservative assumption that there is "only" $4 billion to deal with, and it's all one-time revenue.

Here are some ideas I have heard already:

1. Don't spend it. Save it in a reserve in case the economy craters or to help cover the still-substantial structural deficit next year.

2. A down-payment on the governor's infrastructure plan, starting with fixing the levees.

3. My favorite so far: Give $3 billion to the schools in a one-time payment to satisfy the obligation the education lobby claims the state owes the schools. But require districts to dedicate the money to paying for unfunded retiree health benefit obligations if they have any. If they are free and clear, they can spend it on anything they wish.

4. A tax rebate to low-income and middle-income taxpayers to make up for the wage gains they didn't get as the upper-income folks made all the money that probably generated most of these taxes.

Other ideas?

email me at
dweintraub@sacbee.com

More numbers from the Franchise Tax Board:

The $11.3 billion in personal income tax payments in April were 40 percent more than April 2005. In April 2001, at the height of the dot com boom, the state collected $10.2 billion in PIT payments.

As of Friday, 11.6 million returns had been processed and another 2 million returns had yet to be counted.

The LA Times Poll has Westly up by 13 on Angelides. For the fall, the poll shows Westly beating Schwarzenegger and the governor tied with Angelides in hypothetical match-ups.