EDITORIAL CHOOSING OUR DEBTS VOTE YES ON PROPS. 1B AND 1E; NO ON 1C, 1D AND 84.

FORTY-FIVE years ago, the state of California spent as much as 60 percent of its budget on infrastructure and capital improvements, and the investment showed. The state's schools, freeways and other public facilities were the envy of the world.

Since then, Sacramento has increasingly found other uses for those funds, from a swelling state bureaucracy to expansive social programs. Now, if Sacramento spends money on capital improvements at all, it's almost entirely with borrowed money. And after decades of inadequate investment, our once-proud infrastructure system is crumbling.

Our freeways are a crowded mess. Our schools, like our prisons, are overcrowded. Our water system hasn't kept up with the growing population. And our inadequate levees are begging for a Katrina-style disaster.

A bipartisan coalition of state leaders, including Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature's top Democrats, have responded to California's infrastructure crisis by creating a package of bonds to address some of the state's key needs. These leaders deserve credit, especially during an election year, for putting partisanship aside in order to address critical issues that cannot be ignored any longer.

Still, these four measures, plus a separate clean-water bond that also appears on the November ballot, would come at a steep price -- $43 billion in new debt, some $2.8 billion in annual payments and a 30-year price tag of about $84 billion -- at a time when the state can arguably least afford it. California already has a roughly $5 billion structural deficit, and revenues will almost surely decline as the housing market cools off.

That said, one virtue of bonds is that they force politicians to pay for the state's top priorities first. When government leaders are locked into paying back investors for infrastructure improvements, that's money they can't waste elsewhere.

Voters, then, face a tough choice: Do we take on more debt, thereby putting the state in greater financial straits? Or do we continue to ignore our infrastructure needs, and put our environment, our economy and our quality of life -- in some case, our lives themselves -- at risk?

There's no easy answer, except to say that Californians must choose wisely, striking a balance between investing in our future and mortgaging ourselves to the hilt. Some needs are simply more vital -- and some bonds more worthy -- than others. Below are our recommendations:

Proposition 1B: Traffic is the bane of California commuters' existence, and California's pitifully inadequate transportation system is a job and air-quality killer. Proposition 1B, which would provide $20 billion in traffic relief, is essential. Vote yes.

Proposition 1C: Although California clearly lacks affordable housing, it's an issue best handled by local governments, which are more attuned to local needs. Los Angeles, for example, is addressing this problem through its own Measure H. And proponents of Proposition 1C -- which would provide $3 billion for housing statewide -- made minimal effort to ensure that it would fund smart growth, which is to say, it could have the unintended effect of undermining Measure 1B's traffic relief. Vote no.

Proposition 1D: Seeing that L.A. residents have already invested $14 billion in new schools locally, it's hard to see why we should support this $10 billion bond to subsidize other parts of the state that have failed to make the same investment. Vote no.

Proposition 1E: The $4 billion that this measure would pay to strengthen levees and control floods could, for some, be the difference between life and death. And paying for the consequences of disastrous flooding later would be far more expensive than taking precautionary measures now. The lesson of New Orleans couldn't be more clear. Vote yes.

Proposition 84: This $5.4 billion bond would fund a wide array of water-related projects -- some important, some pork, and some redundant in light of the flood-control funding in Proposition 1E. While no one denies the need to care for and expand California's water supply, voters have already approved numerous water bonds in recent years, and this one doesn't make the best possible use of the money available. This is a need that can, and should, be put off for another year. Vote no.

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