The $2.4 billion the federal government just dropped on California is a gift that might be booby-trapped. It will likely relieve the pressure to cut spending in the coming year, easing life for the poor and for the doctors and hospitals that care for them. But it will also make it that much harder to eventually bring the state's budget back into balance.

The money is part of a $20 billion package of federal aid Congress approved two weeks ago along with the tax cut President Bush was pushing for. The catch is that it's short-term money, spread over this year and next, and then the states will have to get by without it again.

From an accountant's point of view, California should use its share of the windfall to reduce the state's huge and growing deficit. The state would do this by using as much of the federal money as possible to pay for services already rendered.

Money that can't be used in that way would go for near-term needs that won't be built into the budget on a permanent basis. At minimum, the money wouldn't be used as an excuse to undo planned spending cuts.

It's the same dilemma, on a smaller scale, that California faced when the dot-com boom showered the treasury with billions of dollars in new income tax revenue at the end of the 1990s. Most people believed the good fortune couldn't possibly last.

But the state booked the money anyway and used it to expand health, education and welfare programs.

Human nature and political reality make it likely that the Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis will follow the same course again. They have a chance to preserve needed services, and to do so without raising taxes any further than they already intend to. It's difficult to imagine them doing otherwise.

The governor's fiscal shop circulated a plan last week laying out one way the new federal money might be spent. The plan has not yet been approved by lawmakers who are writing the budget. But it's a good bet that something like it will be, soon.

Essentially, the plan calls for reversing the most severe of the cuts Davis recommended in his revised budget in May.

The governor, for example, had proposed suspending a planned increase in benefit checks to the low-income aged and disabled. The cost-of-living adjustment would boost monthly grants to individuals from $757 to $778. Now the administration says the new federal money could be used to pay for the increase. Cost: $316 million.

Davis also had proposed a 15 percent cut in reimbursements to doctors who provide care under the state's Medi-Cal program. Critics said this would lead more doctors to drop out of the program, making it harder for people to get care. Now the administration says the federal money can be used to alleviate this cut. Cost: $572 million.

The governor's proposed budget also would have eliminated a set of Medi-Cal services that the federal government doesn't require the state to provide. This included everything from adult dental care to chiropractors, psychological counseling, eyeglasses and hearing aids. Now the governor might use the federal money to continue these benefits. Cost: $197 million.

Davis would use about $355 million to pay for services already provided in the current fiscal year. Another $211 million would make up for health care cuts the Legislature said it approved earlier this year but which the governor says can't be made under the law sent to his desk. About $200 million would pay some of what the state owes local governments.

It's difficult to argue against any of this spending in isolation. But that's really not the point. What the state is on the verge of doing is making more ongoing commitments without the money to pay for them. Californians, and their governor and Legislature, need to decide what level of services they need and want and then agree on taxes to finance those services.

The governor's revised budget, already overloaded with debt, anticipated the re-emergence of a new deficit next spring, to the tune of $8 billion. If this federal money is used to preserve programs the governor had planned to cut, next year's deficit will grow even larger when the federal money goes away but the programs remain. Davis has suggested including a provision that makes the cuts automatic once the federal dollars disappear. But don't count on the Legislature including that safety valve.

To put this dilemma in perspective, imagine that you are deep in debt and have just mapped out a painful plan to reduce your spending to bring it more closely in line with your income. Then the boss drops an unexpected year-end bonus in your lap.

Do you stick to your discipline and use the bonus to retire some of that accumulated debt? Or do you scrap your austerity plan and use the new money to prop up your unsustainable spending ways?

It's almost impossible to make tough decisions when you have an easier alternative. And that's exactly the position the state is in today.