There is at least one good thing in Gov. Mark Sanford's proposal to give every S.C. tax filer a rebate of roughly $75: Tax rebates, as opposed to tax cuts, preserve the state's tax base. You can rebate excess tax collections to taxpayers in flush years. In lean years, when there is no excess, you use state revenue to finance state operations and public schools.

But that's the best that can be said of Sanford's tax-rebate proposal, which would cost about $151 million. The proposal is troubling for two reasons:

The rebate would be regressive. Every S.C. taxpayer would get the same rebate regardless of how much state income tax he or she paid. A fairer program would rebate taxes proportionally - though handling rebates that way would be an administrative nightmare.

For that reason, S.C. Democrats' charge that Sanford wants legislators to help him buy votes in his re-election campaign year, though clearly politically motivated, does take on validity. Lower income S.C. residents who get the rebates would be well aware they have Sanford to thank for state largesse that, strictly speaking, they don't deserve.

More important, the $151 million Sanford would apply to rebates could better be used to upgrade early childhood education programs for S.C. preschoolers, as mandated last week by an S.C. judge. Sanford does address that need in his budget proposal. By cobbling together money from cuts in other programs, he would redirect $38 million to preschool for S.C. youngsters from low-income families.

There's serious doubt whether that's enough to prepare all the state's poor children to begin kindergarten with a realistic chance of success in school. Moreover, each of the programs from which he would "borrow" the $38 million total has a dogged constituency that would fight to preserve its funding. There's no guarantee legislators could summon the political will to carve this money out of other budgets. Why not ensure the new preschool programs get the funding they need by launching them with the surplus revenue from which Sanford would draw the rebates? Why make a political football of them?

To be fair, Sanford structured his budget proposal to ensure that a one-time surplus of about $758 million doesn't get used for permanent programs, prospectively forcing the state to raise taxes in future years. Rebating "unneeded" tax money while using the rest of the surplus to pay down debt is consistent with his philosophy of government.

But Lee County Circuit Judge Thomas Cooper rightly ordered the state last week to ensure all needy S.C. youngsters get preschool training, so they have a chance to receive the "minimally adequate" public-school education mandated in the S.C. Constitution. Using the surplus to make certain that need is met is a better use of the money than rebates, and that's what the General Assembly should do.