To our elected officials in Sacramento, the state's never-ending budget mess must seem like a game.

Too bad this is a game with real losers: the residents of California.

While the governor and legislators of both parties dawdle, the state suffers. For the better part of two years, as the politicians have shifted money around to maintain the farce of a balanced budget, they have robbed Californians of crucial funding for quality-of-life concerns.

Nowhere is the impact felt more than in the area of transportation, especially for Southern California residents who have wasted months if not years of their lives idling on clogged freeways and stuck at jammed traffic intersections.

And it's only going to get worse.

According to a state audit, between the last fiscal year and the new one that's just started, Sacramento has already cut $2 billion in funding for transportation. On top of that, Gov. Gray Davis' proposed budget would slash the funding by $970 million more.

The trouble all began in recent years, with the Legislature raiding $1.5 billion in transit funds to help shore up the budget. Now it could be years until those loans are repaid, if they ever are.

It's a familiar Sacramento story: Politicians take from the services that the public needs most, like transportation and schools, in order to finance their own lavish spending on perks, bureaucrats and sweetheart deals for the well-connected.

Meanwhile, the California Department of Transportation has had to put key projects on hold. That includes traffic signal synchronization projects in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere in Los Angeles as well as desperately needed improvements on the 405-101 Freeway interchange.

All of which goes to show that what happens in Sacramento -- or, as the case may be, what doesn't happen in Sacramento -- has a serious impact on the everyday lives of regular Californians. Usually that impact is subtle, but it's real nonetheless.

When motorists find themselves stuck in traffic over the next five, 10 or more years, they might not realize that it didn't have to be that way. If only their legislators had honored their commitments to the public, the state would have improved various roads and freeways long ago.

And the costs extend beyond the occasional traffic jam.

Traffic gridlock contributes to the smog that pollutes our air. It imperils public safety. To the extent that the lack of state spending on transportation prevents California from obtaining federal matching funds, the problem only builds upon itself.

Adding insult to injury, state leaders have the gall to triple the annual car tax. That is, they're asking us to pay more so that they can deliver less.

The lack of leadership in Sacramento is a real problem carrying real costs, ones that all Californians will have to endure for years -- if not decades -- to come.