Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has ordered Alan Hevesi to pay the state another $90,000, bringing the chauffeur-scandal grand total up to $172,000. Just to put this into perspective, from April to June 2006, the state gathered $187 billion in tax revenue.

For $172,000 you can buy a very nice home in Buffalo. For $187 billion, you can dip every structure in Buffalo in solid gold, send every child in the next seven generations to Swarthmore, provide each family in Erie County with a lifetime supply of foie gras, and hire the cast of Friends to perform every episode of every season in the town square, where it now rains diamonds 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (except Christmas, when it rains frankincense).

Hevesi Repays State Additional $90,000 for Use Of Driver [AP]
State Tax Revenue Surges Despite Slowing Economy [Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government]