Proposal 1 Goes Down

Proposal 1 was seen as the fraud that it was. 80% of the electorate said, no, we aren't buying it.

Dear Lansing, Figure out how to do your jobs. Figure out how to work together. Learn how to lead, contribute, and govern. If you have to raise taxes to fix roads, and I don't believe you do, go ahead and do it. And then we'll deal with you accordingly. One has to wonder though, that if we cut just two of the upper echelon positions of fat in the government, say two jobs that pay 300 K a year, how many roads we could fix with and extra $600,000 dollars a year for a few years?

Here's another thing. When are we going to re-evaluate why we allow trucks to carry more weight than any of the states around us? We live in the frost belt. Allowing so much weight and subsequently trucks grinding our roads to pieces in a few years? What is the point? When you cross the state line you instantly notice the difference.

Our roads seem to be always under construction anyway. You want to know what kills the tourism dollars? Road repair. I once came back to Michigan from Ohio and passed through TWO road constructions sites BEFORE I REACHED THE WELCOME CENTER! My friends in Ohio tell me they avoid this place like the plague, because they try to come here and are stuck in constant traffic stoppages at construction sites. This is ridiculous.

And then the proposal said "the money is guaranteed to go to transportation. NOT roads. Duh!
Transportation can mean more weigh stations that are never open, more Department of Transportation Muckity-Mucks making $300,000 a year. It doesn't necessarily mean Roads as the ads tried to imply.

And dare I ask? This is 2015. We can make phones that allow the entire knowledge of the whole world at our finger tips, our TVs show every pore on an actor's face, and we love to pay 4 bucks for a cup of coffee. Are you telling me we can't come up with a material that will last 20 years once we lay it on a road? How about silicon/fiberglass roads? How about acknowledging our frost-line and building roads like the Autobahn? The Autobahn is, count 'em, 4 [FOUR] feet thick. It's been there for 50 years. No problem.

There are effective ways to deal with this problem. But temporary band-aids so that some Lansing official's brother-in-law can to continue to make a fortune are a total waste of time.

Ads with "school bus drivers" and pictures of cute little kids, and the phrase "if it cost me a penny more, I'm all for it." are sickening. It ain't a penny, honey. It's a tax that would have killed sales of high ticket items like cars and homes. And we did not buy this. The Repubs wanted us to hurt ourselves, so they could campaign on the fact that they didn't raise taxes, we did it to ourselves.

Not this time. Learn how to do your jobs.