Oregonians love their kicker nearly as much as they hate the idea of a sales tax. Those checks are doled out just in time for Christmas when the state takes in more money than expected.

Yet the kicker law — a constitutional amendment since a vote in 2000 — has its flaws, and Gov. John Kitzhaber said recently he’d like to fix what many think is its biggest problem. It’s an effort worth making.

Lawmakers adopted the kicker law in 1979 as a means of keeping legislative spending in check. Now, when state revenues rise more than 2 percent above the official revenue projection in any biennium, the excess goes back to taxpayers.

That’s happened 8 times since 1979, most recently in 2007, and it has served to keep government spending in check, generally a good thing.

But there are problems. When revenues do exceed projections by more than 2 percent, every penny above the projection goes back to taxpayers. The trigger point in this biennium is $290 million, which is equivalent to 2 percent of the official prediction for the current budget cycle. Collect more than that, even a tiny bit more, and every penny, including the $290 million, goes back to taxpayers. Collect just $290 million, and it’s the Legislature’s to spend.

Yet hitting the tax revenue projection accurately is an impossible task. Some years Oregon, like all states, collects more than expected, occasionally substantially more. Some years it takes in less, forcing lawmakers to trim state budgets to meet lower income forecasts.

Kitzhaber would not abandon the kicker altogether — likely an impossible task — but change the law so that the state could keep the amount collected up to the 2 percent trigger point, in this case $290 million. Anything over would, as usual, go back to taxpayers.

That makes sense, though to get it done the governor will have to persuade first the Legislature and then voters it’s the right thing to do. We don’t know if he can accomplish it, but we do hope he tries. Were predicting income an exact science, we might feel otherwise, but as things now stand, the state’s constitution leaves no margin for the inevitable error.