I just posted yesterday about efforts to recover transit funds previously raided by the State Legislature — and an accompanying ballot initiative in the works to prevent more raids in the future.

Well, it appears the future is now. Here’s the L.A. Times’ story on the latest proposal to balance California’s state budget and it involves taking more dollars from public transit. From the story, published today:

The governor’s latest plan, a complex gas-tax swap that officials familiar with the plan said would shrink transit funds by as much as $1 billion, could trigger another round of route closures and fare hikes for buses and rail lines across the state, transit advocates said.

It follows a state Supreme Court ruling in June that declared years of administration raids on transit money illegal.

It’s a fight that will likely spill over into the new year. On a similar note, I stumbled on this essay by William Voegeli in the City Journal that looks at two states with some similar demographics — California and Texas — and compares their tax rates and the government services that citizens get in return. It’s fair to say the author of the piece is skeptical that state government in California is willing lower its expenses.