V-A-N-C-E S-M-I-T-H
That’s state Rep. Vance Smith, a road builder by trade whom House Speaker Glenn Richardson is backing for head of the Department of Transportation.
It’s safe at this point to generally assume that if Glenn Richardson backs something, it’s a bad idea. Really, I’m not just saying that because I intensely dislike him. But it doesn’t hurt.
It’ll be quite the racket for Glenn and his buddy Vance if that turkey somehow gets the job, what with Glenn wanting to commandeer local governments’ ability to tax.
Maybe we should just start cutting checks straight to the road lobby instead of dealing with middle-men like Richardson who are going to take graft off the top. At least then maybe mortgaging away our future might be a little cheaper.
Better yet, let’s just load a fleet of Apaches with asphalt mixers and have them fly over the metro area and surrounding counties, dumping it in all the places where roads don’t exist yet. Tell people to bring their umbrellas, and they’ll be fine. Just don’t ask the state to provide the umbrellas.
h/t Ben
This kind of thing makes me really paranoid. There’s a very strong “Stop I3″ coalition here that is putting up a good fight, and I hate to see this type of thing coming down. Either party, I think, getting a monopoly on power spells corruption. Thats what we are seeing.