Highway Pork??

The Wall Street Journal called the new highway bill a “Lu-Lu”. A 284 billion bill to spend taxpayer’s money with all kinds of pork in it. The biggest winner is rip-off artist Transportation Chairman and Republican Don Young of Alaska. Young felt so good about it he “affectionately” named this bill after his wife, Lu. He is bringing $722,000,000.00 of this money to his home state, an average of $1,500.00 per resident. Right here at home, we are still studying the feasibility of extending Rt. 29 to Route 80. The cost of this project was originally estimated to be$300 million and now has risen to an estimated $600 million. (This figure stated by an IDOT engineer at a Council of River Governments meeting in February, 2005). On March 9, 2002, (no, not a misprint, 2002) Ray LaHood is quoted in the JS as saying “consultants will analyze by this fall whether the Route 29 route is feasible”. It is now almost three years later and we are spending another $3 million dollars to continue to study it and the estimated cost has doubled. But why stop now, our leadership started it. And don’t tell me many of you were opposed to it to start with, but were you able to stop it and will you stop it now? Of course you won’t and neither will the JS Board of Editors inform the general public that the cost has doubled and we are still spending money to study it almost three years after LaHood said we would know whether or not it is feasible.

The Republicans were supposed to be the fiscally conservative party. What is going on with the big spenders in my party? We are spending ourselves toward some future depression that will make 1929 look a day at the beach! How much debt can this country handle? As individual, we can only handle so much without going bankrupt. It appears to some of our governmental bodies, debt is no problem. Sooner or later this big spending and increasing debt will come home to roost.

The WJS goes on to say “Messrs. Hastert and Don Young described this higher federal spending as an economic boon that will create some 47,500 jobs for every billion dollars spent. But by that logic why not spend a trillion on highways”? It’s like saying when I buy a car and saved $5,000.00, I should have bought 10 cars and saved $50,000.00. I also would have created more jobs.

The JS instead of printing so much trivia and sensationalism, ought to find out how much has been spent on outside consultants and how much overhead IDOT & USDOT have spent on just studying highway construction in our area and how much some of these “consultants” have contributed to get these big spenders elected. I know the more we spend on actual construction the more companies like Caterpillar earn. But the only people making money on the studies are the consultants. And you and I are paying for these consultants thru continually increased taxes at the pump. Don’t blame the oil companies in for all the high cost of gasoline, look how much tax is added to every gallon. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it is around 30cents a gallon in Illinois. Don’t advise me that we need people to make studies before building because I know that. But look at all the studying we have done without building. And some of these older studies are now outdated and shelved to take up space so that more buildings are required just to store these records.

I recently blogged excerpts of an article in Forbes Magazine (which the JS printed in full a week or so after I wrote my blog) entitled “The Answer is Always Yes”. This article stated that once the movers and shakers started something, nothing like lack of money and possible financial failure, could stand in their way even if they really knew that they were wrong. Just like the builder of the Titanic who couldn’t accept the fact that his unsinkable ship was sinking.

I do realize that some good comes from everything we do right or wrong. However if we keep doing enough wrong nothing good will come of that in the end. Like some union bosses told me, we don’t give a damn what you build, just build it because we need the jobs. Unfortunately, their members and their families will be paying for the debt we are accumulating sometime in the near future.

Oh, some of the pork in this 84 billion bill is $7.3 million for a Vermont snowmobile trail and $10 million for a parking garage at a Harlem hospital. Any of this sounds familiar?

We have long winters here in Peoria. I guess all this spending and debt accumulation makes good reading and conversation till we can forget about it and enjoy the spring, summer and fall. Maybe we will get serious about what our elected officials are doing come next winter!!