August
Terrific package on homelessness in Quincy. Gives a good understanding of the complexity of the subject and helps us realize that simple "solutions" aren't really solutions at all....they're just slogans.
Interesting contrast between the editorial approaches of the Whig and the Post-Dispatch over the last couple of weeks to the subject of capital projects. The Whig responded to Congress' passage of the huge water projects bill with utter glee and then yesterday called for more capital spending at the state level including the Macomb bypass and the "Trans Iowa/Illinois freight corridor," which is a fancy name for Iowa 163, U.S. 63, and U.S. 34 between Des Moines and Galesburg. The P-D half-heartedly welcomed the water bill for the jobs and money it would bring but admitted that if the project were headed for any other part of the country, the newpaper would be condemning it as pork, pork, pork.
And yes, those highway projects are pork. Anyone who's traveled I-172 or Ill. 336 lately knows that those are not high-traffic highways. It would be nice to have four-lanes everywhere you went, but priorities have to be set. Sorry, Macomb, but your bypass is not essential to public safety. And if the goal is to get freight from Des Moines to Galesburg, I-80 and I-74 are perfectly fine for the job. The collapse of the Minneapolis bridge reminds us that infrastructure maintenance is a vital job of government, and spending money on less-than-essential projects just because they "provide jobs" only takes money away from the essential ones.
Meanwhile, our friends in Missouri take the opposite approach....cut taxes and propose toll roads. A toll road proponent in the legislature actually cited California as an example for Missouri to follow....hoping I suppose that few Missouri legislators have ever tried to drive California highways.
Interesting contrast between the editorial approaches of the Whig and the Post-Dispatch over the last couple of weeks to the subject of capital projects. The Whig responded to Congress' passage of the huge water projects bill with utter glee and then yesterday called for more capital spending at the state level including the Macomb bypass and the "Trans Iowa/Illinois freight corridor," which is a fancy name for Iowa 163, U.S. 63, and U.S. 34 between Des Moines and Galesburg. The P-D half-heartedly welcomed the water bill for the jobs and money it would bring but admitted that if the project were headed for any other part of the country, the newpaper would be condemning it as pork, pork, pork.
And yes, those highway projects are pork. Anyone who's traveled I-172 or Ill. 336 lately knows that those are not high-traffic highways. It would be nice to have four-lanes everywhere you went, but priorities have to be set. Sorry, Macomb, but your bypass is not essential to public safety. And if the goal is to get freight from Des Moines to Galesburg, I-80 and I-74 are perfectly fine for the job. The collapse of the Minneapolis bridge reminds us that infrastructure maintenance is a vital job of government, and spending money on less-than-essential projects just because they "provide jobs" only takes money away from the essential ones.
Meanwhile, our friends in Missouri take the opposite approach....cut taxes and propose toll roads. A toll road proponent in the legislature actually cited California as an example for Missouri to follow....hoping I suppose that few Missouri legislators have ever tried to drive California highways.
posted by Allthenewsthatfits at 6:45 AM
3 Comments:
"The collapse of the Minneapolis bridge reminds us that infrastructure maintenance is a vital job of government, and spending money on less-than-essential projects just because they "provide jobs" only takes money away from the essential ones."
You mean like the waste of $billions on Halliburton's Iraq?
This link from Josephus's blog pretty much sums it up, I think.
"Terrific package on homelessness in Quincy."
This is a joke, right? 5 kids by the age of 21 with three different men...and in return for our tax money paying her bills, we get a story giving us her sob story? Doesn't sound like a fair trade to me. Why wasn't she asked if birth control ever entered her mind after the first kid at age 15?
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