We're way off topic here (trains??), but you have a point, both at the California and at the national level. Since WW2, it's almost always been necessary to have a couple of terms of a Dem Governor or President after a run of Repubs to clean up the messes left by the supposedly fiscal conservatives. Dems, at least, seem to be willing to generate income to pay for their programs - unlike the Repubs, they both tax and spend (and deal with the consequences), rather than borrowing and spending (deferring the consequences to the Dems).

Interesting side note: most of the important environmental laws came out of Republican administrations at both state and national levels, sometimes with a little restructuring after Dems took over. Many of the major infrastructure programs started there, too, like Interstate Highways and CAHSR, though those were happily adopted by the Dems that followed. OTOH, some of the major regulatory reforms, in recent times anyway, came from Dem administrations (Staggers, airline/trucking deregulation).

I refer to "recently" or "since World War 2." That's because before 1900-1930 the general character of the parties was largely reversed, with the Dems much more like the Tea Party of today (small government, low taxes) and the Repubs the party of Big Projects and Bureacracy (with taxes to match). Though the Repubs have always been the party of Big Business. Somehow, during that period things flipped and by the 1930s we had the parties acting much like they do today.