Oil boom has Wyoming flush with cash

[Regis Philbin]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...TL&type=health

Wyoming Ponders What to Do With Surplus

By BEN NEARY, Associated Press Writer

Cheyenne, Wyo. (AP) --

Gov. Dave Freudenthal has a problem his peers can only dream — and maybe needle him — about: $1.8 billion, burning a hole in the state's wallet.

Next year's projected surplus, made possible by soaring oil and gas revenues, puts Wyoming in an enviable position as other states struggle to recover from fiscal troubles. But it doesn't make state politics any more harmonious.

Some Republican legislators are blasting Freudenthal for proposing that the state sock away only $1.2 billion into savings over the next two years.

Freudenthal, a Democrat in a state where registered Democrats are outnumbered by Republicans nearly three to one, defends the budget proposal he released Thursday, saying it uses some of the state's energy windfall for needed programs and infrastructure while acknowledging that the good times may not last.

"I think we need to be pretty realistic about it; this is an amazing thing," Freudenthal said. "And I think we have to be realistic about this may or may not go on forever, which is why there's such an emphasis in here on one-time expenditures."

The governor says even with his call for total state spending to exceed $6.8 billion over the next two years, the state is on track to meet its goal of having $4 billion in its permanent fund by 2010. That's roughly $8,000 for each of the just over 500,000 residents in the nation's least populous state.