I'm all for states rights, but the highways are part of a defense network. Even if the defense is commerce need for wartime.
As for the flood control, and not just looking at the AMerican river, or acouple others in cali, many of the systems in question are multi-state. Look at the missisippi, mosouri and ohio river systems that cover many states.
A coordinated effort at the federal level is required in these cases.
How classically liberal that sentiment, carefully skirting the already established authority to federalize infrastructure in times of a national emergency and avoiding completely, the issue of local abuses of the strategic concept.
Would residential streets also be of federal, strategic importance and therefor the responsibility of federal taxpayers?
A coordinated effort at the federal level is required in these cases.
Absolutely but those cases don't involve California and are beside the point of this discussion: using state taxpayer money to build new schools in Los Angeles' Mexican barrios, to protect lowland dwellers in Sacramento County and to ease commuter's blues in SoCal.
Building flood protection is the financial responsibility of those who reside below the high water line in the American and Sacramento Rivers drainage. Building new schools in foreign ghettos is the responsibility of our federal government through the vehicle of foreign aid. Building new commuter roads in SoCal is the financial responsibility of either their local users or their local residents or both (toll roads).