Stimulus Package: Decreasing our Standard of Living
Loading ...Every day, I take the same exact route to and from work. Like most of you (who are fortunate enough to still have jobs in the state of Michigan), this route becomes routine. And you don’t really stop to think about this routine until the same road you take every day is closed for construction. Upon closer observation, it appeared that the road was in the process of being converted from pavement to gravel. Huh? Seriously? Gravel? What could possibly be the reasoning behind digressing our standard of roads? Then I saw it: a sign that is barely readable through the thick cloud of dust caused by the newly converted gravel road: Projects Funded by ARRA. That’s it. My blood is boiling, all I see is red. Everything becomes clear: this is where our tax dollars went as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009–the stimulus bill.
Paving roads is a sign of progress. So turning paved roads into gravel roads is a sign of a decreased standard of living.
“More than 20 of the 83 counties in Michigan, home to the nation’s highest unemployment rate for much of the past four years have turned rural roads back to gravel with no immediate plans to repave, according to the County Road Association of Michigan. About 50 miles have been reverted in the last 3 years,” reports Tim Martin of the Chicago Tribune. “About a quarter of the state’s county road agencies largely left out of the federal stimulus package, which focuses on highways and other major thoroughfares, say they can’t afford some costly repaving projects and have crushed up deteriorating roads.”
First of all, this particular road that I travel twice daily is a very heavily traveled road because it’s one of the only connecting roads from a major national highway to a bustling tourist town that brings in nearly 3,000,000 visitors every year. So when they say ‘rural’ road, I would assume they mean roads less traveled. Second of all, the government’s definition of “deteriorating” must be different than mine. Sure, it had a few potholes but at least you could go the posted speed limit of 55 mph instead of 20 mph for fear of destroying your vehicle. At least with a paved road, albeit a few potholes, you didn’t worry about losing traction on loose stones, kicking up a cloud of dust thicker than pea soup and driving a car that looks like it’s been sand-blasted, not to mention the increased maintenance expense caused by the excessive wear and tear. I don’t know about you, but I would rather live with the paved road with a few potholes than digress to a gravel road. This issue raises a very important question: why waste the taxpayer’s money on making road conditions WORSE? ‘Stimulus spending’ is decreasing our standard of living.
Many bloggers interject that the state of Michigan is doing this to save money. However, that is not the case because these tax dollars are coming from the 2009 stimulus bill created with a sole purpose of spending money. Therefore, Michigan tax dollars remain untouched by implementing these projects (at first). It is cheaper to lay gravel than it is to repave. So there are savings initially but they are short-term. And they’re not really savings at all because the stimulus bill was above and beyond the taxes we already fork out. Long term, these gravel roads will cost Michigan taxpayers more to maintain because they have to be grated every year, the dust has to be controlled with brine and seasonal changes are harder on gravel roads, especially if a nice heavy rain decides to wipe out entire sections of road. That being said, any minimum wage jobs that were created for a couple of days to convert these roads into gravel will cost the taxpayers more in the long run.
And what about the businesses that suffer from traffic seeking alternative routes? Quite often I would stop at a Tim Horton’s and pick up a hot cup of coffee on my way into work because it happened to be enroute. What used to be a convenience would now take me an extra 15 minutes to do–sorry, Tim Ho, but the coffee’s not THAT great. And there’s many other businesses that will feel the effects of traffic that has been diverted because of ’stimulus spending’.
“We don’t want to go backward and I see this as going backward,” said Tim Hammill, Managing Director of Dickinson County Road Commission in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where 2.5 miles of paved road was converted to gravel last year. “It’s depressing.” He added.
Of course it’s depressing. We literally paid millions of dollars to have our roads destroyed and taxes raised so the county could hire four more people to work for minimum wage for a couple of weeks. Even in third world countries, they are paving roads. I can’t wait until we revert back to kerosene lamps and can finally be rid of this electricity fad.
