So an out-of-state toll-road operators' trade association is urging Wisconsin policy-makers to deal with "slashed budgets" - - with no responsibility assigned - - and get Bucky on the toll-road bandwagon.
Do these self-interested tool-beneficiaries know what's happening right now in Wisconsin?
This is a state where people making the minimum wage are locked by Scott Walker into the federal minimum of $7.25/hr.
Where poverty is at a 30-year high.
This is the state where Walker - - the incumbent gubernatorial friend of in-state road-builders - - has already presided over the nation's deepest loss of middle-class incomes and where residents pay huge premiums for routine medical car compared to other states.
From what pockets of disposable income are those tolls to be paid?
And shed no crocodile tears for Wisconsin's Department of Transportation and its alleged budget woes.
This is the agency which has been caught by a federal judge having prepared to waste $140 million on an expansion of Highway 23.
And wants to spend more than $1 billion to expand I-94 instead of dedicating what funding it has to repair a state road system allowed to deteriorate because contractors make more money laying concrete than patching it.
The icing on the cake: Walker vetoed from the last budget a legislative call for an audit of state highway spending.
Give road-builders and their political protectors more money to spend, especially from a dedicated revenue stream and we'll have more unfilled potholes, cancelled buses and fewer trains.
Infrastructure deterioration in Wisconsin — due largely to slashed budgets — affects almost every industry and motorist in the state.
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Do these self-interested tool-beneficiaries know what's happening right now in Wisconsin?
This is a state where people making the minimum wage are locked by Scott Walker into the federal minimum of $7.25/hr.
Where poverty is at a 30-year high.
This is the state where Walker - - the incumbent gubernatorial friend of in-state road-builders - - has already presided over the nation's deepest loss of middle-class incomes and where residents pay huge premiums for routine medical car compared to other states.
From what pockets of disposable income are those tolls to be paid?
And shed no crocodile tears for Wisconsin's Department of Transportation and its alleged budget woes.
This is the agency which has been caught by a federal judge having prepared to waste $140 million on an expansion of Highway 23.
And wants to spend more than $1 billion to expand I-94 instead of dedicating what funding it has to repair a state road system allowed to deteriorate because contractors make more money laying concrete than patching it.
The icing on the cake: Walker vetoed from the last budget a legislative call for an audit of state highway spending.
Give road-builders and their political protectors more money to spend, especially from a dedicated revenue stream and we'll have more unfilled potholes, cancelled buses and fewer trains.
I have a construction backround and to get to the point, we give money to road builders as a gift to the oil industry. Bitumin which asphalt comes from is a product of oil. When it is put on top of concrete it doesn't bind so when moisture get's in and freezes it loosens the layers and the top begins to erode quickly. If you notice, crews will put tar in the cracks to "seal" the crack. And when tar gets cold, it cracks easily. All this labor spent and all the petroleum products used to try to keep a road that is way older than it's original design usable is an extreme waste of taxpayer money. Can we all say "God Bless Special Interests" and kneel and pray to the petroleum propaganda lobbyists that walk the halls of government. Boy are we dumb.
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