Much of California’s infrastructure is falling on disrepair because of the underfunding that they have received over the last 20 years.  It’s time that we rebuild.  There are 5 bonds (1A to 1E) aimed at rebuilding.

I am very hesitant about issuing bonds because of how it causes lots of long term debt that can potentially cripple our children and grandchildren’s ability to have a balanced budget for California without taxing them into poverty.  That said, there are a few times when bonds are appropriate.  As the ad for these bonds say “build it now, pay over time”.  That makes a lot of sense when what is built will be used and valuable over time.  So things like freeways and flood protection which will benefit us both now and over time are reasonable things to spend bond money on.  For this reason I endorse 1A, 1B and 1E.

However, 1C and 1D are complete pork projects that do not benefit the state over the long term.  1C is the housing and emergency shelter fund.  I’m sorry, whatever this money is used for will be gone long before the bonds are paid.  In rare cases like New Orleans it make sense to use bonds to rebuild after disasters.  For most it is wiser to build up a savings account for a “rainy day”.  California should not be putting the re-occuring costs of emergencies and disasters on our children.

1D is similarly poorly focused.  The money for schools, while some of it goes to infrastructure projects, has too large a percentage that goes to re-occuring costs like textbooks.  The school system as it stands is mostly broke.  We shouldn’t over-invest in this area until things get straightened out and the reigns are put on the CTA and we definitely shouldn’t do it when we’re doing it with pork bonds.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 4th, 2006 at 1:03 am and is filed under Politics, Politics - State. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.