Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed sending car owners in the state a $400 debit card to help ease the economic pain of rising gas prices, KTLA-TV5 in Los Angeles reports.
The program would cost $11 billion, of which $9 billion would go toward the payments to residents and the rest to administrative costs, pausing a diesel tax that generates $600 million per year and providing $750 million in rail subsidies. The money would come from California’s budget surplus, which estimates put between $50 billion and $68 billion.