http://www.ComputerBob.com/personal/tax_dollars.php .
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by ComputerBob
April 4, 2001
The citizens of my state pay more taxes to the government every year than the citizens of nearly every other state in the Union. As a result, my state's government has run up billions of dollars of "tax surpluses" -- translation: they've been severely over-taxing us -- every year for the past decade. Despite having all that money, it appears that they never spend any of it to fix our long-crumbling highways.
Take for example, the four-lane beltway on which I drive to and from work every day. Every day for the past six months, I have had to carefully guide my heavy-duty SUV -- which I bought specifically to endure the horrible condition of our roads -- through a miles-long gauntlet of bone-jarring potholes and washboard pavement that can cause a vehicle to suddenly bounce into the adjacent lane and loosen the fillings in its driver's teeth. And, every day for the past six months, I've wondered when the state is going to do something about that stretch of highway.
Well, it took them long enough, but today, the state finally did something about that stretch of highway.
This afternoon, on my way home from teaching, a few seconds before I reached the worst section of pavement, I saw two brand new yellow traffic signs -- one on each side of the road. Each sign said:
Rough Road Next Six Miles.