What would your spouse think if the plumbing was leaking from your second floor bathroom and your home’s aging sewer pipes were corroded to the point they were on the verge of breaking and dumping raw sewage into your crawl space but you want to take all of the $4,000 you saved and put a hot tub in your man cave?
Let’s say the  family van you  need for basic transportation for your three kids, do grocery shopping, take you to the hospital when it’s time to give birth to your next baby and get you to and from work had brakes pad metal grinding against the metal on rotors plus you had four bald tires. Instead of taking what extra money you have to make sure your family van was in working order would you be happy if your spouse took every last dime and maxed out your household credit so he could buy a Ferrari capable to clocking 220 mph?
At the very least it would be irresponsible. Someone might lecture him on the need to take care of basics first. He might even be warned sternly that he was driving his family to financial ruin.
While you might be tempted to divorce him, don’t. He has a lucrative future as a California legislator.
The news that California may now be in a life and death struggle for up to 188,000 of its residents to make Oroville Dam whole again before the next rainy season rolls around hasn’t stopped many legislators from salivating over slick reports touting the Twin Tunnels. Nor have reports there are pressing delayed maintenance issues involving other dams, the California Aqueduct, and levees that could easily eclipse the $18 billion low ball price tag on the Twin Tunnels getting them to reassess their priorities.
As for potholes, aging bridges, and crumbling pavement issues on California’s extensive freeway and highway system that 39.5 million people rely on day in and day out to keep goods and the economy moving, get to and from work and school, and access emergency services, Sacramento finds spending $70 billion on a train to whisk a relatively small handful of people between Los Angeles and San Francisco starting maybe 10 years from now at 220 mph more pressing.
If the housing collapse didn’t teach us anything else it should have hammered into our heads the need to live within our means.
The path Sacramento is taking California down is extremely short-sighted.
Those that have justified reasons to cast a suspicious eye on LA’s water design have asked what good is the Twin Tunnels if there isn’t any more water storage being developed. Updated reality needs to change the question to why build the Twin Tunnels if the existing dams that store water may fail?
High speed rail is more of the same. Estimates of how bad the state’s road infrastruce is puts it in the same price range in terms to fix as the high speed rail’s cost. And as we all know the real cost of each will be significantly higher than $60 billion to $70 billion when the work is actually done and financing costs factored into the equation.
Making matters worse is the changing taxing landscape.
You wouldn’t buy a hot tub if you knew you are likely to see your pay cut or stagnant. And you wouldn’t be maxing out your credit to purchase a Ferrari if you knew you needed to put a new roof on your home to prevent it from collapsing. And you certainly wouldn’t start spending like Kim Kardashian in a jewelry store if your accountant told you just years away from retirement that you only have 62 percent of what you need to stay solvent when you start tapping into your pension fund.
That is exactly what the state is doing by ignoring financial realities.
Sales tax is taking a hit from online retail even with it being taxed because of how difficult it is to track.
Income taxes that depend heavily on profits from a hyper stock market are cyclical.
California Public Employee Retirement System is severely underfunded and presents an obligation the general fund will eventually need to cover.
Uncle Sam may soon reduce or greatly cut handouts to cover Medi-Cal that constitutes a huge chunk of the general fund.
And since just like everyone else, the state’s ability to borrow money and how much they can secure depends on their ability to repay it.
A rationale person would say taking care of basic needs and protecting the integrity of expensive and essential assets you already have would be the top priority since allowing them to deteriorate to a certain point would trigger unimaginable replacement costs.
But being rationale is not a job requirement to be a California legislator.
The Roman Empire collapsed for a reason as did the Soviet Union.
There is a grave danger in reading your own reviews and believing you are invincible and can spend your way out of anything because the money will always roll in.
“Hail Caesar” might not be the right fit, though to greet future California governors given we have the added twist of “The Big One” laying waste to much of the state’s coastal regions.
Perhaps “Hail Atlantis” might work better.
And keep your fingers crossed that craters that replace potholes don’t pop your tires as you scramble to reach high speed rail to flee to LA fast enough to stay ahead of the wall of water from an Oroville Dam collapse.