Let's make a deal on public works projects   Four decades of
government neglect are catching up with California. In November,
a bond package to widen crowded highways and prevent overflowing
rivers and classrooms will land on the ballot with a kerplunk
price tag of $37.3 billion. But California isn't alone. The bill
for America's infrastructure is mounting.  From roads to rails,
the US requires an estimated $1.6 trillion in infrastructure
spending over the next five years, according to the American
Society of Civil Engineers. And even though the California bond
request is the most concerted effort to invest in asphalt,
steel, and mortar since the 1960s, it's only about half what
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says the state really needs.  This
leaves a person wondering just how the West Coast country-
within-a-country, or the rest of the nation for that matter, can
come up with the tax revenues for all this.  Recommended: Could
you pass a US citizenship test?  One idea that's gaining ground
in the US is worth cons