The Bay Bridge foul-ups and the long-running California budget fiasco have much in common.

Neither seems susceptible to a quick fix, and the time, energy and cost expended has made us skeptical that anything of lasting value was really accomplished.

The bridge is reopened (for now), but work already has taken nearly eight years at an estimated cost of $7.2 billion and the engineers still could not get it right. A crack in of one of the span's 200 so-called eyebars - the same problem which closed it on Labor Day weekend - was the apparent culprit.

We are told that the reconstruction design specs did not take high winds and continuous vibrations into consideration. That's a little like saying we need not consider weather conditions when we build airplanes.

Monitoring devices able to detect excessive structural movements and routinely deployed on bridges were apparently not covered under the price tag. The disregard for such simple safety measures could have posed unacceptable loss of lives.

California's repeated failure to bring in on-time budgets also results from misplaced confidence over the years in the state's vaunted ability to take action when faced with cataclysmic events.

But a fiscal crisis endangers millions and the flimsy budget repairs made this year are already being undone by the realization that, barring a magical recovery in the state's financial, real estate and job markets, the picture could worsen before it improves.

Unfortunately, the government does not have the luxury of reviewing various design options when plotting our future. Weighty economic decisions must be made on the run, often without sufficient information by legislators who are barely into mastering the intricacies of their diverse subject areas when they are termed out.

We heap scorn on politicians for anything that goes wrong, fairly or not. In truth, this stems from irreconcilable differences between what the public expects and what lawmakers are able to deliver under the rules we the people have created.

Proposition 13 has essentially robbed us of the ability to raise revenues indispensable to the complex fabric of health, educational, safety and social services we demand. A two-thirds supermajority favored by the voters is needed to raise taxes - arguably creating a dictatorship of the minority.

Our famous initiative process, originally conceived to free us from domination by money barons and which proponents like to call "direct democracy," is now controlled by other special interests with different names.

All this has left the courts straining to untangle the contradictory mandates and prohibitions adopted by the voters with the powers ceded them by a frustrated legislature.

It should not require a constitutional convention to fix these problems, but some, such as Assemblyman Jared Huffman see the appeal. If it occurs, Huffman favors a comprehensive package of reforms rather than doing this piecemeal.  

If convened, one must ask how and by whom will the delegates be chosen and what issues could be taken off the table?  

Bridges are eventually repaired. Fixing a government could be more challenging.

The conventioneers might want to open the proceedings with Pogo's admonition "We have met the enemy and he is us."