Good politicians like Jerry Brown know not to waste a good crisis. And so last week he urged that lawmakers spend $437 million for flood control. It is a modest request, though not nearly enough, as he readily acknowledged by displaying charts showing that upgrading California’s water infrastructure, including 1,500 dams and thousands of miles of levees, would cost $50 billion. If we Californians are to live and prosper in our re-engineered state, we will need to pay for it, or, as Brown said, “belly up to the bar.”