I disagree, terp. The problem we have is funds are not being spent efficiently enough. When the government has a surplus of any tax, they simply appropriate it to an unrelated area.

We don't need higher taxes, we need greater efficiency. And we're not likely to get that by repeatedly signing blank checks for the government!

The problem we have is funds are not being spent efficiently enough. When the government has a surplus of any tax, they simply appropriate it to an unrelated area.

I wish it was that simple Gid, but I don't think it's just a case of the funds not being spent efficiently enough.

I know that there are plenty of times when the government does things in the most inefficient manner possible.  Believe me, I know of those sorts of things as there are software packages used at my job that the government pays *large* amounts of money for yearly maintenance on.  If they paid for multiple years at one time, they could reduce the per year cost quite significantly.  If they paid for say 5 years worth of maintenance at one time, they'd pay roughly 2 and a half years worth of fees for that service, saving 50% of the costs over time.  The longer they sign up for, the more they can save in fees, and yet they don't.  Because they can't, or because it's too hard to do, and they can't get funding from next year's pool of money to spend this year, or whatever the excuse is.

It costs million$ to continue down that same path, and yet nothing changes despite the best efforts of people tasked with managing the maintenance fees for it all.

That is just an example of a place where money could be saved if the government really wanted it to be done that way, but I don't believe those kinds of examples apply to road building and maintanence.

Consider again how much the costs of most things have gone up over the last several years.  Exclude computers (which seem to continue to buck the trend of always getting more expensive) and most consumer electronics items, and look at homes where inflation has meant a home that cost $200,000 some years ago is now $800,000 or more.  Even a simple mobile home has gone from being a $30,000 purchase to being a $130,000 purchase.

Things cost more now than they did back when $0.35 (give or take) per gallon could fund the transportation trust fund and keep us going on and on with it.  The people that build roadways now get paid a lot more for their work so that they can pay for their cars and their houses, for their children to go to school, for their health care, etc.  But the pool that funds their work hasn't really grown exponentially like all of these other costs have.

I want money to be spent right, but I also want to know that there is enough there to do the building that has to be done.  States have ignored the road ways (for the most part) over the last several years because they were busy spending the money they had on other things (like schools as an example, an area where I truly believe we have been terribly inefficient) and the Feds have not been much better.

Sure there have been money for some pork-barrel projects (bridges to no-where in Alaska anyone?), but again, the amount of money that has been tossed back into road building hasn't been near what it should be, and I believe that has more to do with a lack of revenue coming into the transportation trust fund coffers more than anything else.

There are lots of other issues involved to, including many NIMBY types that refuse to let new roadways be built in their area, or environmental types that are more worried about protecting some lizards, or birds, or insects of some sort, or perhaps protecting some land that occassionally could be considered wet-lands, but again, when push comes to shove, I think it comes down to not enough money to handle the road building needs.

Want a bit of proof?  Look at Virginia and their whacky plan to impose 'abuser' fees so that they can raise million$ to spend on road building.  Look at Maryland where the state finds itself in a structural deficit of $1.5 billion.  Look at lots of states.  Heck, look at the bridge that just fell in Minnesota.

Look at the roads you drive on and tell me you really don't think they need resurfacing soon?  That a few of the bridges around you don't need to be looked at and possibly replaced sooner rather than later.

Then tell me again that you don't think the problem is money and a lack of enough of it?

When I see Caltrans {the California Government} on the side of the road 'fixing things here is what I see, One man or woman with a sign at either end of the construction using the sign to stop or slow traffic, wage for this 18 Plus per hour, then I see a guy sitting in a piece of heavy machinery on the side of the road doing nothing yet, wage for this? 65 to 95 an hour. then there are at least 2 white hats, supervisors they are, what they make or what they are doing there I have no Idea. then there is four or five laborerers of which 3 are scratching their balls, one is scratching his ass and one is sweating breaking his ass working, starting wages for these guys start at 18 per hour.

to repair and build roads period.

I disagree, terp. The problem we have is funds are not being spent efficiently enough. When the government has a surplus of any tax, they simply appropriate it to an unrelated area. We don't need higher taxes, we need greater efficiency. And we're not likely to get that by repeatedly signing blank checks for the government!

Beat me to it!  My thoughts exactly.

this was 6 years ago in utah. but one mile of roadway cost one million dollars. don't know if that includes bridges.

Terp, I believe you misunderstood me. I was referring to the politicizing of this event. How somehow this is Bush's fault. I wasn't talking about you. My bad for the confusion.

Thanks for the clarification.

I do understand your concerns on the politicizing of this tragedy.  That is the thing that first torqued me off about the situation and the bleeting of the clueless one, but, I have to say, there is a very tiny grain of truth in what I noticed as one of the headlines that appeared in the sidebar recently -- that being that the infrastructure needs in this country haven't been adequately met.

With all due respect to my libertarian friend, and Dr. Guy, etc., I think an honest review of the situation would find that we just haven't been spending enough on our roadways, and/or haven't been collecting enough money to spend on them.

I am well aware that the clowns in the Virginia legislature, along with the Democrats that have been governors there recently, have had no end of grief in finding solutions to the transportation problems that have faced Northern Virginia.  They just haven't had the money to build the roadways that they need.  It hasn't been a case of NIMBYs blocking the roadways (that has been more the case in Maryland, where the NIMBY's have worked hard to stop the Inter-County Connector that would help get traffic off the Beltway, and help move people into and out of Northern Virginia, Montgomery County, etc.) but instead has been a case of a legislature that hasn't been able to fund road projects while also taking care of the other needs of the residents of the state.

As I noted above, Maryland is facing a $1.5 billion structural deficit.  I refuse to believe that deficit is the fault of Bush, the GOP controlled congress, or even the now Democrat controlled congress.  We had a Republican governor in Maryland (first time in 40 years) and the clowns that controlled the legislature here -- quite specifically the speaker of the clowns, Michael Busch -- worked hard to keep that poor man from passing a slots/casino gambling bill that would have helped fund some of the required spending in the state, and would have helped eliminate some of that structural deficit.

Can a state spend money on roadways when it can't afford (supposedly) to educate it's youngsters?  When it can't afford to handle the health care needs of it's residents and those that are in the state illegally (again, thanks in large part to liberals that refused to actually enforce immigration laws, and refuses to work towards deporting and discourgaging illegals from coming to the state), can the state handle many millions, if not hundreds of millions in roadway building?

I don't know.  I doubt it, but I just don't know.

 

As to this:

this was 6 years ago in utah. but one mile of roadway cost one million dollars. don't know if that includes bridges.

I wouldn't be surprised at those numbers or numbers even higher.

Again, I'm not going to sit here and write a book for the clueless one, or write a chapter in what would become one of his worthless tomes.  I'd rather see individuals that are reading my thoughts do their own research and really think about the situation.  If they did, I think they'd see I'm not crazy and that we have a serious need that should be addressed sooner, rather than later.