Where's their money from?
Here's my question. With the State of California telling us they can't spend money, and with no budget in sight, where's Caltrans getting the money to repave miles of Highway 101 between Ukiah and Hopland - which by the way, didn't look like they needed repaving anyway. And doing it at night when you know all those workers are making gajillion-time dollars. I have been traveling all week between Ukiah and Willits and if Caltrans wants to repave something they should have started at Calpella and headed north. The slow lane between the bottom of Willits Grade and Calpella is terrible. (The fast lane is fine but that never means Caltrans skips repaving it anyway.)
But the worst of Highway 101 can't compare to most of the county's roads. This is where taxpayers throw up their hands and say government simply doesn't work: Caltrans has multimillions to repave pretty good roads and the county has no money to repave terrible roads. When you ask why, government officials tell you it's because Caltrans' money comes from some different pot of cash and can't be interchanged with the money from the lowly counties. What taxpayers however see, is their tax dollars being spent with no apparent sense of proportion or need.
You can translate that into just about any sector of government and there's not much secret about why taxpayers get riled up about government waste and inefficiency.