Posted on 08/18/2006 4:37:26 PM PDT by calcowgirl
California must spend $107 billion on its roads, ports and other transportation infrastructure to keep its economy competitive and its quality of life decent, a member of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Cabinet said Thursday in Oxnard.
Sunne Wright McPeak, California's secretary of business, transportation and housing, was one of the architects of Schwarzenegger's massive public works proposals, some of which will appear on the Nov. 7 ballot. McPeak spoke about those proposals and some of the other challenges facing the state at a dinner held by the World Affairs Council of Ventura County.
Voters will decide on four bond measures worth a total of $37.3 billion in November. The largest one, at $19.9 billion, would pay for improvements to California's roads, highways, ports, bridges and public transit.
The transportation bond is part of a $107 billion plan to improve transportation infrastructure over the next decade. The plan was hatched in the early days of the Schwarzenegger administration, McPeak said, when the governor asked her to draw up a list of the state's most pressing needs. Don't be constrained by money, he told her.
"I think the governor and I have enough of a common approach to know I would be disciplined with it," McPeak said.
She identified traffic congestion as the biggest problem, and decided that the state could actually reduce congestion over the next decade. Because shipping by truck contributes greatly to traffic, the state plans to spend $15 billion on improving access to California's ports, including the Port of Hueneme.
"It became obvious that at the top of the list for investment had to be the goods-moving infrastructure," McPeak said. "We all appreciate sneakers coming in cheap from China, but we don't appreciate being stuck behind the trucks on the freeway that are bringing them to the store."
The current plans don't include the necessary funding for a proposed "bullet train" connecting Northern and Southern California, McPeak said in response to a question from the audience. That will probably go on the ballot in 2008 as a separate bond measure.
"We want a multi-modal system," she said. "We don't want just freeways, but if we don't fix what we've got first, we won't have a world-class infrastructure."
Once McPeak finished her speech, the conversation soon strayed from infrastructure bonds. A series of questions focused on vocational education, and what the state should do to help high school students who aren't college-bound.
"High school is for two things," said Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Charles Weis, who attended the dinner.
"It's for preparing people for college and preparing them for the working world. We do a pretty decent job at the first and a terrible job at the second."
Part of the answer, McPeak said, is for business leaders to work closely with school officials to design programs that will produce the right kind of workers.
Barbara Boxer has also now endorsed the Big Bond Bonanza.
uhhh, McSqueak is a dem.. no surprise, she's the one leaving soon to take a cushy 200K job somewhere for a non-profit if my memory serves me right..
If only we had known this the first time we built California and the rest of the nation. Think of how wonderful life would be by now.
The spend-crazy pols. They just never stop, and they won't until the people say NO MORE.
whew. Thats a lot of money. Happy taxpayers? nada.
Well, golly gee, where do I sign up?
Other than that old evergreen "The Rat is worse", can anyone give me one good reason any conservative should vote for that RINO jackass?
Lots of "non-profit" jobs are cushy too.
Did you ever hear the one about the man who went into charity work to do good, and he did very well indeed?
"The spend-crazy pols. They just never stop, and they won't until the people say NO MORE."
Uh ... Isn't that what putting bonds up to a vote is all about ?
The people get to decide on if they want to spend that money or not ?
I think they should get one third of the money by cancelling the funds for the CA embryonic stem cell consortium. Let the private biotec firms fund the research they hope to profit from instead of getting the basics for that research done for free by the taxpayer. In the process, the unemployed academics would learn that adult stem cell research is already reaping solutions their lobbyists have falsely sold as only possible with embryonic stem cells.
More accurately:
old evergreen "Their liberal is worse",
Actually and practically NO.
Uh ... Isn't that what putting bonds up to a vote is all about? The voters get to decide if they want to spend other people's money?
Now, that's accurate and reflective of direct democracy in a state where well over 50% of the eligible voters pay little or no taxes.
Only their methods differ; the results are about the same. One note comes due immediately (the Rat) while the other isn't due until some future time (our liberal).
"....while the other isn't due until some future time ..."
I am all for spending only what you can pay for, but are you against taking out a mortgage for a house to be paid over many years ?
For example, a new sewer system, if paid for immediately out of funds saved from the water rates of current users, would benefit those who who move in and have not paid for it, they get a free ride.
The expectation is that things will get better and the populace more prosperous so that the effective "bite" is less in the future years.
After the first 10 years or so of a mortgage, you could not hope to rent the same place for the cost of the payments you are making.
"A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatibl with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
James Madison, Federalist No. 10.
Madison's concern: "You are the minority and have the money. We are the majority and can legally take it with impunity. "
So - Madison had a problem with it, but he seems to have been a bit off in our case as to it's lifespan.
If you had taken his advice from his mouth, your childrens childrens childrens childrens would be dead by now and his dire predictions for the death of democracy would not have come to pass.
In any case - as I asked before ... do YOU have a problem with direct democracy ?
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