That’s California, not Alabama, wrecking its transit system.

Basically, the state is being wrecked by promises, privileges and pandering in the past, by pensions and (especially) debt. That is going to be true of every state and local government in the long run, particularly NY and NJ.

The result is an institutional collapse, with the only question what collapses first and the answer based on the relative clout of different public service producer interests, since consumers of public services/taxpayers don’t matter. I guess the transit unions and contractors matter less than some others.

Recall that our state has already cut off capital funding for the MTA. It cut capital funding rather than operating funding because the consequences of doing so were deferred. But they cannot be deferred indefinately.

We don’t have a super-majority blocking tax increases, but we do have the highest taxes in the country, and they will be raised until people and businesses leave. At that point there will be a revenue meltdown.

I’ll say it again, it would be a good thing if the subway could pay for itself, and a bad thing if it had no revenues at all.

On NY vs. CA, if you look back on my posts on public employment from the 2007 Census of Governments, I believe I included a spreadsheet with several of the big California counties (prepared for a friend who lives there). I’ll have more to say when the 2007 Census of Governments finance phase comes out this summer.

Off the top of my head based on past data:

California local goverments are less overstaffed relative to the national average than certain aspects of NY local goverments — police in NYC, schools in the rest of the state. But the pay of local government workers is much higher in CA, relative to private pay (school pay is also high in the portion of NY State outside NYC).

California’s Medicaid spending is vastly lower than NY.

Calfornia’s school spending is far more equitable than NY (like virtually all states), because Prop 13 cut the cord from property taxes and limited increases.

In the past California’s state and local taxes were about average as a share of personal income, while New York’s were and are off the charts.

When I first started compiling data, California’s school spending was very low compared with the income of its residents, among the lowest in the country. Califoria increased its school spending in the late 1990s early 2000s as a share of income, but did not increase its taxes as a share of income. I guess it borrowed and cashed in the mega-revenues of the dot-com bubble instead. Prior to the recent period, California did not have a debt problem like NY did. Now it does.

Growing areas with relatively few retired public employees can under-fund their pensions, expecting to stick a larger number of future residents with the bill. Soaring pension costs wrecked NYC in the 1970s. California’s population growth slowed after 1990. Pensions are wrecking it now, especially since (like NY) it handed out all kinds of sweeteners in the last decade or so.

San Francisco requires a public referendum for pension changes, handed out fewer sweeteners, and has solvent pensions. But otherwise its local government looks bad. Its schools have more non-instructional workers than instructional workers.

With San Diego’s pension disaster, public services are sinking fast there.

If I were there, I’d be too worried about water and earthquakes to worry about public finance.

Does anyone in these agencies or the governments allegedly overseeing them ever look at an actuarial table? Paying full pension to someone after 23 years mean you begin paying out for zero work when that person is 43, give or take. With current life expectancy, that means you’re funding roughly three workers (20-43, 43-66, 66-89) for every one actually working. It doesn’t take a MENSA cardholder to see that that’s not sustainable.