This just came in from longtime FR friend Bruce Bialosky…
Give Them More Money?
by Bruce Bialosky
It is difficult to determine whether to give more money to our friends in Sacramento. This dilemma was no more apparent than during my just-completed road trip. I flew to Kansas to drive my son back from college for the summer.
We drove Interstate 40 through five states. We started with Oklahoma – the state universally teased about people living in trailer parks and having sex with their cousins. We followed I-40 as we went through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and finally California. The highway was well maintained throughout, including great signage. Arizona had new signs every 4 to 8 miles indicating what cities follow. Everything was beautiful … until we crossed the border into California.
Once we entered California the quality of the road went down remarkably. There was some roadwork being done — maybe it was stimulus money for one of those shovel-ready projects. There was little or no signage. Sometimes we went 20 or more miles with no indication of what was ahead. The quality of the driving experience was inferior to every other state. California appeared to be the poor sister to the other states.
This route through California is not unique in this manner. When we first went to Kansas, we took the northern route along I-15 through Las Vegas to I-70. If you follow I-15, it is in dreary condition until you hit the border of Nevada where it miraculously changes. As a Californian, I find this embarrassing.
The state of California already receives well over $100 billion of our money, yet it cannot maintain our roads anything like our neighbors maintain theirs. This would seem like a basic role for the state. The legislators would prefer to
Our experience on our roads is just a microcosm of the misuse of funds by our elected officials. I moved here 40 years ago when California was a model for the rest of the nation. Since then, the leadership of this state has, through malfeasance, destroyed our great state. From a superior state we have become a backwater state to Oklahoma. This is because of our “leadership” in Sacramento. To cover their inept behavior they want us to throw more money at them. We will not get better roads or better schools or better prisons by throwing more money at Sacramento with this current gang running things. They will perpetuate the disaster they have already created.
The residents of California have allowed the near destruction of our state. We need to start by telling our elected officials they cannot have any more of our hard-earned money to fritter away by voting against these propositions. We then have to show them the door come November 2010.