A Qualified Defense of Pork – California Transit Edition
Apropos of Ezra’s recent article on why state-run health care is unlikely to ever be a sustainable solution because states will always bail on their health care plans when the economy takes a turn south – we have news (via Dana Goldstein) that (southern) California is bailing on a proposed extension of public transit so that the state can do some long term budget balancing. This is unfortunate, but not all that surprising given California’s -and all states- budget constraints. So, if states can’t run deficits, than how are they supposed to fund infrastructure projects in times of sluggish tax recipts or downright decline in revenue? That’s right, they hit up the feds.
Unfortunately, this is the exact type of spending that’s derided as “pork” and these days there’s calls from Glenn Reynolds and “porkbusters” to eliminate this type of spending. But states are very rarely in the fiscal shape to initiate such spending, and there’s always time when they can’t keep up. Sure, various bond measures and accounting trips will keep these projects afloat temporarily, but just using federal dollars would be a much more efficient way to fund them.
