Proposition 1B - No


Say No to running up the state's credit cards in order to pay for meaningless programs

This is part of my ongoing series of posts on each of the Propositions we'll be voting on. Here is the original post, with my ground rules for evaluating propositions, my scorecard and links to each of my arguments.

Proposition 1B - No

Summary - Authorizes the state to take out roughly $20 Billion in bond debt to pay for transportation related projects. Projects would range from safety improvements and earthquake retro-fitting to expanding public transportation and carpool lanes.

Commentary - This measure can be eliminated almost by default when considering it against the rules. Rule #2 is that bond measures are highly suspect. This proposition is a good example of why this rule is in place. We will be paying about $40 Billion for these transportation improvements. About half of that will be going to the actual improvements themselves, and the other half - a whopping 19+ BILLION dollars - will be going to just the debt service. That means for every dollar we spend on transportation, it costs us two dollars. Why wouldn't we simply dedicated the money in the budget to transportation, rather than running up the state's credit cards to pay for something that should be taken care of?

The answer is, as Prop 1A shows, that legislators would rather raid the transportation funds for other pet projects of theirs. They don't think transportation is a big deal, and are obviously counting on the voters of CA to pick up the tab and bail them out with a bond. But if Prop 1A shows us anything, its that legislators cannot be trusted with transportation money. Prop 1A is on the ballot because they ignored prop 42 that said they couldn't raid the transportation funds and let our freeways slowly choke to death. What's to say that they won't take this $20 Billion and pocket it like they've done in the past?

The other major reason for Rule #2 is that bond measures create budget nightmares. Passing this measure means that we add $1.3 Billion dollars a year to the state's budget for the next THIRTY years. In other words, we will have to find over a BILLION dollars a year just to balance our budget - and the legislators in Sacramento don't seem to be capable of balancing a budget without us adding another Billion to the cost side.

The final reason to vote no on this proposition, if you aren't convinced so far, is that it allocates to the real problem all of us face. We all want less traffic. We all want to be able to commute to our jobs at a normal hour without sitting in a slow moving parking lot that is labeled as a freeway. This proposition aims to solve that by.... more carpool lanes and more public transportation. Has traffic decreased at all since the introduction of the carpool lanes? Has it changed anyone's behavior and actually reduced the number of cars on the freeway? Has public transportation been used by any Californians who can afford to drive a car?

The answer to all of these is obviously no - Californians are mostly set in their ways and they need a car to get around. Even as traffic has continued to loom as a larger and larger problem, most Californians have done little to alter their behavior when it comes to driving. We (writ large) simply do not want to take the train to work, or the hassles of carpooling with coworkers. It is a short sided and unrealistic approach to simply assume that pouring more money (very high cost bond money at that) into a failing plan will suddenly turn it into a success.

Posted: Sun - November 5, 2006 at 09:18 AM | | | | | | |

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