{"id":3917,"date":"2007-07-30T14:03:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T14:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=3917"},"modified":"2017-11-25T13:40:13","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T19:40:13","slug":"more-taxes-never-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/30\/more-taxes-never-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"More Taxes Never Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Missouri Department of Transportation, November 10, 2004, after a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.modot.org\/newsandinfo\/newsreleases\/2004\/November_2004\/SmootherRoadsInitiative.htm\" target=\"_new\">Missouri Constitutional amendment throws hundreds of millions of dollars into the Missouri Department of Transportation budget<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Funding from passage of Amendment 3 will provide thousands of miles of smooth roads on Missouri&#8217;s most heavily traveled highways, officials with the Missouri Department of Transportation announced today.<\/p>\n<p>MoDOT unveiled the Smooth Roads Initiative, a plan to provide 2,200 miles of smoother pavement, brighter road markings and other safety improvements in three years.   The initiative is the first part of a three-part plan to use Amendment 3 funds to improve the state&#8217;s highway system.   A map specifying the selected roads was included in the announcement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Missourians spoke loud and clear when they voted for Amendment 3,&#8221; said MoDOT Director Pete Rahn.   &#8220;By an almost four-to-one margin, they said they&#8217;re not happy with current road conditions, and they want them fixed.   Starting today, that&#8217;s just what we&#8217;re going to do.&#8221; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Fast forward (or travel one day at a time like the rest of us) to August, 2007, <i><b>not even three years later<\/b><\/i>, and learn that despite the best efforts of the government, that new money <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/stltoday\/news\/stories.nsf\/stlouiscitycounty\/story\/68FFB3345641829786257328000F0101?OpenDocument\" target=\"_new\">ain&#8217;t enough<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Missouri&#8217;s top transportation official is canvassing the state talking about a &#8220;perfect storm&#8221; forming over his department.<\/p>\n<p>Road construction costs are spiking, debt payments are ballooning, and at the same time, fuel taxes are generating slightly less cash and the federal highway trust fund is speeding toward a multibillion-dollar deficit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Wow, who could have seen that coming?<\/p>\n<p>The more you feed the government, the bigger it gets; the bigger it gets, the more it needs to eat.  Ah, who cares about economics and an understanding of a bureaucratic nature.  THE BEAST IS HUNGRY!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Missouri Department of Transportation, November 10, 2004, after a Missouri Constitutional amendment throws hundreds of millions of dollars into the Missouri Department of Transportation budget: Funding from passage of Amendment 3 will provide thousands of miles of smooth roads on Missouri&#8217;s most heavily traveled highways, officials with the Missouri Department of Transportation announced today. MoDOT [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17926,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917\/revisions\/17926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}