Thanks for the ping!
Note to Self:
...please DO remember to dress more appropriately for these shindigs in the future... LOL
Posted on 01/26/2006 10:14:49 PM PST by NormsRevenge
I want to begin by applauding the administration for finally focusing the government’s attention on our long-neglected public works.
I have often lamented the climacteric that befell our state in 1974 with the election of Gov. Jerry Brown and the introduction of a radical and retrograde ideology. He called it his “era of limits.” It was punctuated with such new age nonsense as the mantra “small is beautiful.” I think it can best be described as the naïve notion that if we stopped building things, people would stop coming.
So we stopped building highways; we stopped building water projects; we stopped building houses and electricity plants. And people came anyway. And now we’re dealing with the result.
That ideology permeated two Democratic and two Republican administrations, and I am very glad to see this administration breaking from this folly.
But as pertains to this specific proposal, I would like to offer a few general observations.
First, by definition, transportation projects provide a direct and exclusive benefit upon a distinct class of users, and they ought to be entirely supported by those users. Thus, highways should be financed entirely by the users of those highways in proportion to their use. Ports should be financed entirely by the users of ports; mass transit by the users of mass transit, and so forth.
With respect to highways, California has long recognized that the most efficient way to do so is through a tax on gasoline paid by highway users in proportion to their use.
Second, there should be a clear distinction between the state highway system, that links the principal population, commercial, industrial and resource centers of the state; and local streets and roads that exclusively serve local communities. We used to make that distinction and we divided our gasoline taxes between the state and the various local jurisdictions.
Third, it should be recognized that highway construction and maintenance is an ongoing responsibility of each generation and should be funded on a pay-as-you-go basis. Each generation has its own maintenance to do and its own roads to build without being encumbered by the decisions of previous generations. Only in the case of capital intensive projects like tunnels and bridges have genuine revenue bonds been used, redeemed not by general highway users, and not by general taxpayers, but by the specific users of those specific projects through tolls.
Measured against these principles, the bond measure before us is a textbook example of how NOT to finance highways.
First, the use of general obligation bonds for transportation projects literally forces those who don’t use them to pay for those who do. Transportation projects should be paid for by the users of those projects in proportion to their use.
Second, the proposal contemplates indebting ALL taxpayers across the state to pay for local streets and roads in other communities – again literally robbing Piedmont to pay Pasadena . State funds should only be used for projects that benefit the entire state – such as the state highway system. Projects that exclusively benefit local communities – such as local streets -- should be exclusively paid for by those local communities.
Third, the proposal contemplates using 30-year bonds to pay for maintenance and equipment that will be obsolete long before the bonds are paid off, stripping the next generation of their ability to meet their own maintenance and equipment needs.
Fourth, the proposal locks in transportation priorities that may be entirely irrelevant or outdated a few decades from now. Population centers and transportation preferences change over time. If projects are funded on a pay-as-you-go basis, they can respond to changes in transportation needs. These 30-year measures rob our children of that flexibility.
Fifth, by encumbering gasoline taxes to pay for so-called “revenue bonds” for mass transit, you are literally robbing highway users to subsidize mass transit users – destroying the financial connection between the users and the payers of transportation projects.
And here is the fine point of it. Californians pay the fourth highest tax per gallon of gasoline in the country. We rank 49th in our per capita spending on our highways. Our problem has never been a lack of funds – but rather an abundance of very bad public policy.
Our gasoline taxes have been siphoned off for purposes unrelated to our highways, and local governments were given what amounts to veto power over state highway projects.
One other point, just for perspective. At the end of the Pat Brown administration, to produce the historic expansion of the state highway system, the state water project, the state university system and so much more, the total amount of general obligation debt incurred over the eight years of that administration – in 2004 inflation-adjusted dollars – was $20 billion. This proposal contemplates general obligation debt of nearly $70 billion.
At the end of that administration, only 2.2 percent of the general fund was consumed by debt service. Today the figure is 5.9 percent.
At the end of that administration, per capita spending – in 2004 inflation-adjusted dollars – amounted to under $1,500 per person. Today it is over $3,000 per person.
Which has delivered us to this fiscal paradox: despite record levels of debt, we have nothing to show for it; and despite record expenditures, we can’t seem to scrape together enough money to build a decent road system.
The fact that the overall plan contemplates nearly $70 billion of debt – compared to only $20 billion amassed by Pat Brown -- leads me to conclude that its sponsors already anticipate that it will be just as foolishly squandered as the record levels of debt and taxes that we are already paying for our public works.
Now, at this point in the proceedings, it would be customary to offer amendments to bring the proposal into line with the sound principles of fiscal policy that Senator Dutton outlined earlier.
But, of course, we are now powerless to do so, because the leadership of the Senate has agreed to bypass the constitutional process of the legislature and instead draft this measure by six members in a conference committee. So the proceedings today are so much hot air. We cannot amend this measure in any way.
In a decision that will rank as the most shameful in the history of the California Senate, the leadership has ab and oned the legislature’s role – and especially the Senate’s role – as the central decision-making organ in the state government. The careful deliberation and amendment of public policy is now a thing of the past.
We’re told our role is now “advisory.” Excuse me, but that’s what the Public Policy Institute and the Comstock Club are for. This is a legislature. We are not supposed to be advising on legislation. We are supposed to be acting on legislation.
I cannot offer amendments, so all I can do is protest, and to vote “No” when this breathtakingly bad public policy is finally dumped in our laps for a take-it or leave-it vote.
Did you agree with his anti-Union and anti-Abortion ballot measures?
Did you like his Death Penalty stance?
Did you agree with him lowering your car tax?
Did you agree with him not allowing illegal to get driver's licenses?
What makes you think they're jokes?
You're telling them, obviously.
No answers from you as usual, just dishonest attacks and lap-dog mentality.
You'll never learn.
Nice touch introducing the "Rainbow " of all the colors into your reply, btw, as nebulous as it is. Is that an oblique way to get your support for LGBT in?
I quit when I got to this..
Sometimes, I get the impression that you happen to live in one of the red enclaves of CA. A bubble. A sanity bubble, yes, you might say that. But there are far more of all Californian's living in the blue and purple zones who live with the reality of what's become of CA -- every single day. I sure did. The hammering of the left NEVER lets up, anywhere. Talk shows help. Reading conservative ideas and issue items, HELPS. But it doesn't cut through or bypass the reality of existing among socialists. There is no low, too low, for them. There is nothing they will not stoop to HURT a conservative residing in a strongly-held blue or purple zone.
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You don't know squat about where I live.
And as usual, you generate a lot of words and make a lot of assumptions..
like the Gub is a good guy and we who don't support him now or before are just deleuded.
That he is a path .. LOLOL.. that's a good one.. To what? the old folks gay and green rest home.
Oh, and thanks for confessing that you are with him, it makes it easier to accept that you are as much a liberal as he is. Keep up the act. It's all ya have left at this point.
I hope that doesn't pop your "bubble".
I need to find a digital camera and take a picture of the sketches you did of my girls at Rabid Dog's house. Whenever I see them (which is every day) I think of you all and especially your kindness. The pictures have been framed and are hanging in our new home in PA.
We moved from California Dec 24 2004 and arrived in PA Dec 29th 2004. I miss the ocean and the community I lived in where I knew everyone. I miss Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and my 2 sisters and 2 brothers. But PA has been the better move for my family. I was in CA last week for work and talked to someone who moved to CA from PA. She can't believe she can't buy a can of paint, or what the cost of living is and how gangs in So Cal are just part of living there (Ventura County).
The reply contains one, salient fact: I supported the wining candidate,
a convenient, self contrived, urban myth that conservatives voted against Prop 73, 74 or 75,
a false implication the our governor has publicly offered either a personal or official stance on the morality of California's death penalty,
an outright falsehood the our governor has lowered Californian's legal obligation to pay the full VLF component of their Vehicle Registration Renewal fees,
and the false implication that the governor's exercise of his veto authority was motivated by conservative instead of Federalist principle.
Adios.
But I do enjoy playing with the quisling mice that occasionally elude the trap. Particularly this one. A real hoot.
I'm at least as equally relaxed in the presence of my detractors on this forum, secure in the knowledge that come to this field of battle armed only with emotions: Phfffttt!.
Time to go. I'm missing the new threads. Via con dios mi amigo en principio.
Note to Self:
...please DO remember to dress more appropriately for these shindigs in the future... LOL
Hi merry!
I'm so glad it's been a good move for your family.
I remember your B2FUL girls like it was yesterday.
No doubt they're even gorgeous-er now. ";^)
That was a once-in-a-lifetime event, the Ronald Reagan Library/barbecue. So happy you were there.
Too many good folks are high-tailing it out of here.
Thanks!
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Excellent post and thanks for coming to my defense. The only reason they call me a shill, so as to use misdirection, like magician, except that they are sorely lacking in the magician's skills. They are way too transparent. And they can't stand when I point out the obvious, that doing things that helps the Dem agenda and helps leftist, socialist Dems get elected is NOT a conservative position.
What an utterly stupid presumption. A transportation network benefits everyone who uses goods and services that are delivered on that system.
Did you like his Death Penalty stance?
Did you agree with him lowering your car tax?
Did you agree with him not allowing illegal to get driver's licenses?
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so you're willing to sacrifice fiscal sanity and borrow til the cows come home, let the gubamint be populated by greens and gays the winning candidate appoints, some testament to conservatism that is.. my my , we sell out cheap , don't we , huh?
talk about drivel... geesh.
"Nice touch introducing the "Rainbow " of all the colors into your reply, btw, as nebulous as it is. Is that an oblique way to get your support for LGBT in? "
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You and your "ilk" are the ones who seemed to be obsessed by homosexual notions, to bring it in, regardless that the previous poster didn't even hint at it.
It seems saying the "sky is blue" makes you think of homosexuals.
That is NOT our problem, it's yours.
There are lots of other boards, if you want to discuss, how mentioning colors makes you think of homosexuality.
You sound like someone who was banned here last year, those multiple accounts come in handy for some who peddle their wares and sell snake oil as vintage bubbly.
your petty little pelosi remarks are quite telling of your inabilities to fathom much more than pop politics as in soda pop, however.
Love how ya debate the issues..
NOT!
Maybe they think we are so "influential", because we expose their hypocrisy.
You seem to be obsessed by me, just like the DUmmies think everything is Bush' fault, you seem to think everything is my fault. You should see a doctor about this. You obsession is not healthy.
Do you hear me talking to you when you turn on your TV also?
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