Government should do for the people what people can't do for themselves, and today we have a $286.4 billion infrastructure improvement omnibus that will prove it. Opponents and sayers-of-neigh point to a high level of pork ($24 billion or 9%, according to the AP) as a reason to strike down the bill, but I think that even Senator McCain's target - landscaping along Ronald Reagan Freeway - will provide jobs and an improved quality of life in California. Pork is pork and I disagree with naming bridges after politicians, but tell an operator or civil engineer who was unemployed that pork-barrel spending is bad.
The previous paragraph isn't to say that I don't have some objections with this bill. Michigan, Wolvering State, The Great Lakes State, 'If You Seek a Pleasant Peninsula Look About You,' home, headquarters, etc, wound up being a donor on this law. That's all well and good, morally, but Michigan's economy is, to quote a pretty sad professor I had, "right in the garbage." I find it poor that a state who ranks in the bottom 5 in unemployment, economic growth, and salary and wage rate growth should wind up sending money out of state by receiving just $0.92 on each dollar of taxes paid.
Meanwhile, Rhode Island is set to see a return of over 100%...over $2 from the Fed per dollar taxed. Delaware, who has but 320 miles (second lowest among states, after Hawaii) and has long been an income tax free haven for the nation's corporations, is set to see a return of roughly $1.46 per gas tax dollar. Michigan, meanwhile, soldiers on, maintaining 4,763 miles of winter-weather highways within its borders and donating over 8% of its gas tax revenue to making sure that when you visit the desert state of Nevada - where midwestern tourists inevitably leave millions in casinos, a post for another time - the roads and bridges are smooth.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005