Watch the roads

The money has to run out sometime. I think it will be next year. Even if the Fed prints hundreds of billions of extra dollars, the inflation will overwhelm our state and local governments.

I've always said that you'll know the recession is bad when you see the potholes. We'll see that quicker here in Pennsylvania than in other states because we have roads that are heavily crisscrossed in interstate commerce, and we have freezing Februaries, which wreak havoc on highway surfaces.

There's also the problem with this state's mounting debt. (Neighboring New Jersey is in no better shape.)

Finish up. The wise thing to do now is to finish all the highway projects we can before the money runs out. We don't want to find ourselves with roads dug up, but no money to fill and lay a final coat.

Yes, this looks serious.

Frank Warner

Comments

[Lynne]

The northeastern winter is supposed to be particularly harsh this year, too.
Yikes.

[jj mollo]

I think some of the federal stimulus money is targeted toward road repair. PA is in bad shape because the legislature is quite capable at raising the members' own salaries at two in the morning, but totally incapable of balancing the budget. One of the stumbling blocks is that sixty-four out of sixty-seven counties despise the City of Philadelphia and will do anything to prevent it from getting any money or anything else that the citizens of Philadelphia want.

Not that he shouldn't be in jail, but Vince Fumo had ways of winning them over and getting the budget passed. The thing about sausage is you need somebody who knows how to pack it.

The issue with potholes in PA is that the weather is constantly changing just at the freezing mark, going below at night and above it in the day. A cold winter might actually improve the situation a little.