Posted on 09/09/2009 4:03:30 AM PDT by rhema
It's a nondescript stretch of Interstate 85, heading south through the pine forests from Petersburg, across Virginia's lower tier of rural counties. I'm not sure why the overpass crossing the interstate caught my eye. Maybe it was that the dozen or so vehicles up there so clearly outnumbered the few down where I was on the much more spacious highway.
That's when I noticed, as we swished under the overpass, the name of the highway: "Poor House Road." It was a busy place.
And then it was only a few hundred yards to the next and much more poignant reminder. It was a rest stop—but orange barrels stretched across the exit, framing a scrawled "CLOSED" placard. I remembered reading that the Commonwealth of Virginia, trying desperately to balance its budget, is closing 19 out of 42 rest stops across the state. The bureaucrats say the closures will save $9 million over the coming year—or about half a million dollars per rest stop. Nor are the barricades just a temporary measure. Plumbing and wiring are being disconnected, and "fixtures" relocated to other sites.
I'm not sure how to measure the literal discomfort such measures will produce. Truckers are upset for obvious reasons. The American Automobile Association is protesting. So are groups like the National Association of Blind Merchants, which for a number of years enjoyed something of a monopoly servicing the vending machines at rest stops across the country.
My father-in-law has often put our family's economic issues in perspective with the terse wisdom that says: "If you can't afford it, you don't need it." OK, I thought, as my morning's coffee percolated through my system. But does Virginia's decision that it can't afford it mean that I don't need it? My blood boiled a bit as I pondered the mismanagement (not just in Virginia, but across the country) that spends millions on a facility like this and then discovers it doesn't have a measly $1,300 a day to operate it.
The total savings claimed by Virginia's Department of Transportation through closing the 19 rest areas amount to just one-third of 1 percent of the $2.6 billion shortfall the department is trying to solve. I know every penny counts. I know that when budget problems show up, you've got to start somewhere. And I'm quick to admit that the disappearance of 19 rest areas in Virginia is probably not the biggest concern of most WORLD readers as we close out our summer schedules and head into a busy fall season.
I stress all this, though, and devote most of my space this week to the mundane matters of Virginia's rest stops, because the issue points so vividly to the lesson we all find so hard to learn: Even though big government does so very few things notably well, we keep asking those same big governments to take over more and more of our lives. Bureaucrats who can't figure out how to keep already-constructed rest rooms operating are expected to be successful in running something as complex as America's healthcare system.
Against all the evidence, the Obama administration is now within a perilous cat's whisker of persuading the American public to make the biggest transfer in history from mostly private transactions to a mostly statist affair. Never mind that New Deal Social Security, Great Society Medicare and Medicaid, and Bush-era Prescription Drug Benefits are all on life-support, with no actuarial chance of resuscitation. Never mind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a stimulus bill that has missed all its sponsors' major predictions, and a Cash for Clunkers program that "ran out of money" it only pretended to have in the first place. Why isn't such real-life experience more instructive?
But maybe there's a little hope. Polls, tea parties, and town-hall protests suggest that this time the people "out there" are ahead of Congress, the administration, and all the bureaucrats. Maybe the cumulative effect of all these years of pretense is sinking in. Maybe it's time to recall Abraham Lincoln's great summary: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Wouldn't it be wonderful if our generation were the one that proved the truth of Lincoln's prediction?
And if it takes something as earthy as a barricaded potty-stop to get our attention, maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.
It probably costs amost as much to keep that sign there.
Truck drivers have been complaining about the rest stop closures for a while now.
I can bet one thing that the State of Virginia DIDN’T do was reduce the pay of any of its executive officers or bureaucrats or reduce their level of staffing or perks. When they look to save money, it’s always on something that is actually useful to the citizenry, while the bureaucrats roll on unhindered.
In addition to governments mis-spending, they also never look for other creative ways to raise money when it comes to providing services to the citizens. It’s possible that leasing the areas to a private company to run, while allowing for some kind of money making service to be provided, or a fractional rise in a toll or a commercial vehicle fee would have covered this expense.
So the lesson is not only that government doesn’t manage things well, but that the group that is lowest down on its list of priorities is always the citizenry. At the top, of course, are the bureaucrats. Obviously, these rest areas didn’t have enough bureaucrats who needed protecting.
eah, and they began to run out of money right as they got to the last “d” on the sign and had to make it lower case.
Instead of closing them why don’t they just license them off to private business????? Ya’ think the fast food and gas stations would want a whack at them????
If you answered yes, you’re right.....They would clamber over it.....and voila, overnight you take a tax drain into a revenue producer......
Government officials are idiots.....
I drive this stretch of road every day. this is also a crappy piece of interstate highway. It has cracked three windshields over 5 years for me.
Debate on youtube (I know, I know) on a video from a person in the UK somewhat bragging that they went to the doctor that day and got an exam and medicine... for free.
So I posted “You didn’t get it for free, do you not understand how taxes work?”
Another poster:”Say I go into a restaurant and order $100 of food. If I invite three more friends to share the cost, it would cost each person less. Do you not understand how division works?”
My reply: If the cost of food for one person is $100, and you split that $100 cost with your friends, you are getting only 25% of the food (HEALTH CARE RATIONING!) or you can each order enough food for each of you and split the $400 ticket and you are back at the same place. Do you not understand multiplication works?
I still have not received a reply.
And yet somewhere in the maze of cubicles in various state offices there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of the breed known as Fat Tammy the Secretary.
Nobody is sure what Fat Tammy’s specific job title is. She has a boss but he’s frequently out of the office. Fat Tammy always has time to visit someone else’s cubicle and gossip.
Fat Tammy isn’t really fat in the rotund sense but she’s still got plenty of padding. Fat Tammy wears the same outfit in varying colors - rayon elastic-waist (she bloats and buttons tend to pop off) pants with a little creaseline woven into them and a twin set.
But most importantly, Fat Tammy walks the corridors starting around 10 or 10:30 with a clutch of takeout menus in hand, asking - make that pestering - everyone in the office for their lunch order. The menus aren’t for Tammy - she knows them by heart and is happy to make a suggestion. By the time she’s done canvassing, eating and socializing she has managed to burn up 4 hours of her ‘work’ day.
The Fat Tammies of this world make $60,000/year plus about $25,000 more in benefits - all of it taxpayer funded. 100 Tammies cost $8.5 million per year. 100 Tammies cost $42.5 million over 5 years.
The next time you are forced to take additional time off the highway to find a McDonald’s or a gas station/convenience store in order to answer the calls of nature, think of Tammy. When politicians moan about budget shortfalls and threaten to cut police & fire services or perform the most cosmetic of closures such as rest stops that require a measly $1,300, think of Tammy.
and it isn’t ironic that the governor of Virginia, who singlehandedly closed these rest ares, is also the current chairman of the DNC?
The Governor of Virginia has been a DemocRAT since 2002. If Virginians know what is good for them, and I think they do, that will change in November.
The same thing is happening here in Maine, the state that loves to bill itself as "Vacationland."
Hey tourists - come here and empty your wallets, just keep your legs crossed until you cross into the next state. Come again!
Closing rest areas effect the States citizens (voters) less since rest areas are mostly used by people traveling through the State.
In Germany, back in the 70s they didn’t have rest areas. It was common to see guys on the side of the road relieving themselves.
Actually, Governor Kaine announced yesterday that some 600 state employees will lose their jobs. In addition, all state workers will be subjected to a day of furlough in May of next year (prior to the end of the fiscal year). But you are correct that the rest areas went first (in the middle of tourist season)
Still, it's important to note that Kaine's $7 billion shortfall surpasses Gilmore's alledged $6 million shortfall.
It's been suggested. Howver that will require a change in federal law that prohibits the operation of private businesses on the Interstates. Maryland, New Jersey and states north were grandfathered in.
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