The public works proposal unveiled last week by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is sure to trigger a number of discussions in the weeks to come about where the money should be spent, how soon, and who should ultimately pay. And among policy wonks, you can expect another debate: about how much debt the state should take on.

One of the men hoping to challenge Schwarzenegger in November’s election, Treasurer Phil Angelides, took a stab at the debt debate this afternoon. His assertion: the governor is purposely miscalculating the state’s debt load under his proposal.

Last week, Schwarzenegger and his advisers took great pains to point out that the agenda for $68 billion in bond offerings (over 10 years) wouldn’t raise the annual amount of the state’s General Fund devoted to debt service above 6%– a number often referred to as the high point of what Wall Street analysts and others consider prudent. Or put in a slightly less wonkish way: that the proposal wouldn’t force more than 6 cents of every dollar from the state’s General Fund to be spent on paying back borrowing.

But Angelides, in strident language that hardly masked the political campaign he hopes to wage against Schwarzenegger, today called that assertion a “political gimmick.” The state treasurer claimed the governor’s team was fudging the debt projections by not accurately including the cost of the deficit bonds issued under 2004’s Proposition 57. Add those bonds into the calculations, said Angelides, and the state’s debt ratio would be more than 8% of the General Fund by July 2008.

In a particularly pointed remark, Angelides said the entire Schwarzenegger infrastructure proposal was mainly hype. “I question the credibility and the competence of the governor and his advisers. I wonder if they really know what they are doing,” said Angelides.

The governor’s budget advisers dispute that assessment, saying that the Prop 57 bonds should be treated differently because they’re being paid back with a formula that includes a guaranteed source of revenue– sales taxes. Budget spokesman H.D. Palmer said that makes the Prop 57 bonds different than other bonds, and says it’s a distinction being ignored by “others with different motivations.”

Looking at the big picture, of course, the issue of debt is politically tricky. Democrats could just as easily demand some new revenues (tax increases) to help pay for these kinds of proposals. Republicans, on the other hand, often loathe borrowing, and could reject the proposal based on the fact that it’ll end up costing more money in the long-run.