Xblog

I think it is safe to say that California is long overdue for some upgrades to its transit infrastructure. There’s also some federal dollars out there somewhere that are probably going to waste if the state doesn’t find a way to provide matching funds.

So, on one hand, it’s hard to argue against increasing spending on streets, highways, train systems, etc. Aside from all of the above it’ll provide for some extra spunk to the economy.

What annoys me is that we don’t fund this spending the old fashioned way: tax increases. I suspect this has a lot to do with a certain fateful “Read My Lips” statement made years ago by the only president since Jimmy Carter to lose a reelection. Politicians are afraid to put in a vote for a straight, across the board tax increase. So instead, we have these huge, long standing bond obligations which have the same effect (increased taxes), but which also cost tax payers in the form of interest charges.

Of course, when this bond runs out, we’ll almost certainly need to fund a new one as all of our transit infrastructure spending for the preceding years would have been used to pay off our bond debts. ;-)

Unfortunately, I think in this case a little bit of realpolitik has to be applied here. Since the voters of California won’t support politicians funding this kind of spending the right way, I am either going to have to live with an infrastructure that falls apart in a few more years or I’m going to have to live with funding this project the wrong way. Given those choices, proposition 1B seems like the lesser of two evils.