There are a few greybeard journalists who watch things on their assigned beats. Dan Walters is one. Daniel Borenstein is another who has recently come to my attention. One could say John Horgan has the ethos but not the frequent deadlines of the others. Tom Elias is another. I saw his piece in today's Daily Post and I thought it was well-constructed but ultimately flawed because he missed the elephant in the room–High Cost Rail. Let start with what he got right. Elias pointed out that many of Gov. Jerry Brown's cost cutting proposals are not going to fly with the radical progressive nimrods that have the majority in Sacramento. These nimrods live in an alternate fiscal reality. Elias listed some of the cuts that Brown is proposing such as
–$4 Billion in school funding "triggered cuts"
–De-emphasizing standardized tests and change funding formulas
–Cut early childhood development programs
–Cut Cal Grants by more than half
–Cut adult in-home health services and outside day care centers
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Recent articles talk about the cuts to the court system, pink slips for thousands of teachers, and the half a trillion dollars in unfunded pension liabilities.
But yet Gov. Brown insists on building a railroad. So what does our local Assemblyman Jerry Hill do this week? Come out in favor of getting started on High Cost Rail on a shared track with Caltrain on the Peninsula. That's right. $100 Billion dollars are going to appear suddenly such that we can get to LA an hour or two slower than the airlines can. Jerry is running for State Senate and barring some major event, he will win. He is also a small business man who has had to meet payroll, but those sensible days are apparently over. The only real hope for California's budget, schools, elderly, real transit options, and local commerce is Washington, D.C where spending this $100B is losing steam every day.
I never thought I would get to this point, but thank God for Congress–or at least the House of Representatives. At least there are some mature adults somewhere casting votes.
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