So screw keeping the roads paved:
SPIRITWOOD, N.D.—A hulking yellow machine inched along Old Highway 10 here recently in a summer scene that seemed as normal as the nearby corn swaying in the breeze. But instead of laying a blanket of steaming blacktop, the machine was grinding the asphalt road into bits.
"When [counties] had lots of money, they paved a lot of the roads and tried to make life easier for the people who lived out here," said Stutsman County Highway Superintendant Mike Zimmerman, sifting the dusty black rubble through his fingers. "Now, it's catching up to them."
Outside this speck of a town, pop. 78, a 10-mile stretch of road had deteriorated to the point that residents reported seeing ducks floating in potholes, Mr. Zimmerman said. As the road wore out, the cost of repaving became too great. Last year, the county spent $400,000 on an RM300 Caterpillar rotary mixer to grind the road up, making it look more like the old homesteader trail it once was.
Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls.
Eisenhower oversaw the paving of America and the creation of the interstate highway system.
Obama is overseeing the de-paving of America and the destruction of the infrastructure grid.
I know that stimulus money could have been used to re-pave roads and refurbish the country's deteriorating infrastructure.
But then Arne and Barack wouldn't have all that Race to the Top money to take from people on food stamps and use to close schools and fire teachers.
And so we see the continued evolution of the United States into a Third World country owned and operated by corporate criminals like Bloomberg, Gates, Jobs, and Blankfein.
H/T: Atrios.
No comments:
Post a Comment