State Budget Woes: Are We There Yet?

More green shoots on Main Street. Last week, the Washington Post broke a story here about how the lovely state of Virginia is planning to close 18 rest stops along Interstate 95 to help close the state's budget gap.

There will now be a 105.99 mile stretch without bathroom on the Eastern seaboard's crowded main artery. Have fun driving into some back woods town, stopping at the old Exxon fill up station and asking for a key tied to a boat paddle to use their old run down bathroom.

Taken from the article:

"We looked at the distance between our rest stops and found we had them as close as 29 miles," said Jeffrey Caldwell, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation. "We decided we'd shoot for about 120 miles, or about two hours, between rest stops."

So how much money is closing 18 rest stops and taking away part of our infrastructure going to save? 9 million dollars.

When you look at the billions of federal bailouts that our financial oligarchs received, Government Sachs (GS), AIG (AIG), Fannie (FNM), Freddie (FRE), Citi (C) etc., 9 million bucks is a piss in the pot.

This (annoying) cut for motorists will save some money but at the same time our government is asking private business to shoulder more of the load. It could be positive for small town McDonald's (MCD) franchises as commuters might pick up some french fries for the road but the thing that annoys me is that Goldman Sachs basically has a blank check and former players in the government to get what ever they want, while the family on a road trip can't even have a bathroom for 120 miles...

Are we there yet?

Comments

[jack kreg]

its beyond me and telling how states reduce expenses,
do they cut salary's, and maintain services, like a business would?? no
do they cut hours but not salary's, yes, this completely ignores the fact that States are supposed to provide services, roads, waterways, mountains, etc, but no services is not the priority, simply cut hours, saving money yes, but also reducing services and efficiency.

States need massive cuts in salarys and benefits, they are currently way overcompensating compared to private sector, where even 401K's are hard to find.
but in the public sector, 401K's are not good enough, they (public gov worker unions) demand, defined benefit retirements plus health care, essentially no where to be found in private sector.
The local school district, SoCal, just hired a director for $250,000 plus life time benefits, thats outrageous and must come to an end.

2009 Jul 15 01:46 PM

[Rwong8200]

How does it cost $500K to run a rest stop? They don't pay taxes? Cleaning can't really cost $1000 a week? No snow removal in Virginia?
Who are they laying off? Don't they get money from the vending machines? I bet leasing them to McDonalds would provide income for the state.

2009 Jul 17 01:17 PM