In his new speech I like what I see. He has again taken responsibility for fucking up with the special election, and for taking such an adversarial stance with the state legislature. I always like it when people own their fuck-ups.

There were several aspects of his speech that I thought were well done. The whole thing was pointedly forward looking. So much of the time I think politicians are sadly short-sighted, and here he at least pretends to be thinking about the future more than a couple of years away.

He is proposing large amounts of money in bond issues in the coming years, and I think that is generally a good idea, but I really doubt that they will pass. Politicians aren’t the only shortsighted ones. Voters freak out if they are asked to pay a couple of hundred of dollars a year, not realizing that this money actually benefits them far more than its measly spending power. Whatever on the reality of getting this money, there are still some good, and some just ok ideas attached to it.

Transportation. Traffic does not have to keep getting worse. It can get better. If we add 1200 miles of new highway and HOV lanes into congested areas, and add 600 miles of mass transit, we can actually reduce traffic delays in the next ten years, even as our population grows and at the same time this investment in transportation will create 150,000 new jobs for our state. I say build it.

I think it is generally a good idea to invest more in our transportation infrastructure, but I wonder if some of this money would be better spent in planning cities in such a way as to require less roads to handle the same amount of people. I think much of the problem now is just that our cities have sprawled out so much that everyone lives far away from where they work, and have limited mass transit options. I don’t want some utopian pedestrian world (traffic calming makes me homicidal), but think that things could be managed in a modular way.

Air Quality. Congestion on our roads and in our ports pollutes our air. Pollution decreases our productivity and increases our health care costs. When one in six children in the Central Valley go to school with an inhaler, it is time to consider clean air as part of our critical infrastructure. We have the technology to clean our air. So I say build it.

I don’t really know what he means by the technology to clean the air, but I can’t really argue if something like it does exist.

K-12 Education. In the next ten years, a quarter of a million more students will be attending our schools. To meet this need, our plan over the next decade proposes construction of more than 2,000 small schools, 40,000 classrooms and modernizing another 140,000. I say build it.

Why not? Even with the money. I’ll believe this when I see it. This sounds like a basic plan, but things like this are harder than they seem. The 2,000 new schools will probably happen anyhow, just in new housing developments.

Higher Education. California’s system of colleges and universities is an enormous asset that fuels our innovation economy. In the next ten years, we must prepare for more than half a million new students. To meet the infrastructure needs of higher education, we need new classrooms, libraries and science labs in hundreds of new buildings on our campuses. I say build it.

I agree that these institutions of higher education are a good thing, but I think that it may be as important just to make the degrees earned from the ones already here mean more than they do. Have you met the average college graduate recently? Morons. It’s like saying that someone must be smart because they are a doctor or lawyer. Some are, but some are no smarter than mechanics or something. It is a technical kind of job, but you don’t necessarily have to be smart to do it. I of course can’t do any of the above, and have no college degree, so that puts me down with, like, mold.

Water and Flood Control. We have done little to expand our water supply in nearly 50 years. We must build more storage capacity, expand our delivery network and strengthen our levees. The Strategic Growth Plan increases our water supply to serve an additional 8.5 million people, supports our agricultural industry and doubles the amount of flood protection in the Sacramento area — better shielding us from a Katrina-type disaster here at home. I say build it.

Fine. We need this, though I don’t think it’s all that great for the environment. Nothing can be done about it though. We’ll be screwed without it. Just try and do it while screwing up as little as possible.

Public Safety. Local jails and state prisons are so overcrowded that criminals are being let out or left on the street because we have no room to lock them up. Our proposal provides for two new prisons, a new crime lab, emergency response facilities and space for 83,000 new prisoners over the next ten years. We must keep the people safe. I say build it.

I guess. I think this is ok as long as the proportion of cells to citizens remains about the same. If cells start to get ahead, we may need a new plan for public safety other than just locking more people.

Courts. Our courts are as congested as our roads and our prisons are, but something even more basic to our democracy is at stake — justice. Justice delayed is justice denied. So our Strategic Plan includes 101 new courts, 56 renovations and 44 expansions, so that justice will not be denied at home. So I say build it.

Same thing here. I do agree though that whatever the court’s decision is going to be, it should come as quickly as possible.

The “I say build it” thing is kind of tired.

Also this year, California’s Proposition 49 after-school initiative kicks in, which will provide an additional 428 million dollars for after-school programs. This will make our state the only one in the nation to offer comprehensive after-school programs. Every elementary and middle school can have a program so that working parents will know that their children will be in a safe environment — getting help with their homework, doing arts and physical activities. This will be good for both the children and the parents.

I think that this is right on, and about time, if it works as planned.

In higher education, we need to reduce the burden on families who send children to our state universities. I propose we should eliminate the increase in tuition scheduled to take effect this fall.

Whatever. This means little in the greater scheme.

Health care. I ask myself, what’s the quickest way that we can help the greatest number of people with the spiraling health care costs? I believe in the free market. I believe in free trade. I mean we buy food from overseas. We buy cars from overseas. Why not prescription drugs? So I call upon the federal government to permit the safe importation of prescription drugs. I say, let the free market work.

I think this is basically a good idea, but again, not all that impactful.

In education, the budget I will introduce next week will propose immediate repayment of the entire 1.67 billion dollars in Proposition 98 money. Now this, in addition to an automatic budget increase of 2.3 billion dollars, will be the largest increase in funding in education’s history. Now I propose that we use part of this money so that children once again can have art, music and physical education in our schools.

If the money actually goes for art, music, and physical education I applaud it. Otherwise, it is just more general education money, and without a focus it will disappear.

And in terms of helping families right now, we must always put public safety first. California should pass Jessica’s Law to track sex offenders. Every parent’s nightmare is that their children are vulnerable to predators on the Internet and in their neighborhoods. There should be no loopholes, no leeway, no leniency for those who harm our children.

I think that tracking of people in any public way is probably a bad idea. As I understand it, sex offenders are already registered, and the police generally know where they are. It seems to me that this kind of tracking just breeds fear and hatred.

Generally I thought that the ideas were good for California in that they were at least looking forward instead of trying to correct mistakes already made. I don’t think that anyone ever looks back and says, “I’m glad they didn’t spend the money to build” whatever.