Country Roads

by capper

The one negative that I had from the weekend was driving on some of the country roads. The County roads and state highways were just fine. Well plowed and salted.

The country roads on the other hand had about an inch of ice on them, which was covered by another inch of snow. Instead of salt, or a salt and sand mixture, it was just sand. Which apparently had been administered with a salt shaker that had half its holes plugged up. I never knew sand was a precious commodity.

Needless to say, mrs. capper and I were very glad that we had good tires and good traction control. There were enough cars in the ditches without adding ours.

So, I went into town on Monday to find out why the back roads were in such terrible shape. I found out that the county plows the state highways and the county roads, but the back country roads were privatized. Apparently, they give a local construction company a contract with a flat amount to do the plowing for the year. If you complain to the government, they refer you to the company, which conveniently has no one available to take calls.

Then I came home and was perusing the blogosphere and saw Nick Schweitzer's view of privatization and this:

Then the next time someone suggests we "privatize" something, the liberals go through the list of the other things we pseudo-privatized and shows what a bad job they've done, and how we've had to bail them out. And to a certain extent, they're absolutely right. The myth is that this can be used as proof that private enterprise is less efficient than government at doing something. But if you never fully cut the cord, and let private enterprise take care of something soup to nuts, then it's not actually privatization. Call it something else... boondogglization, nonprofitization... whatever.... but it sure as hell isn't privatization.

Uh, Nick, privatization your way doesn't work any better than the other way. Sorry.

Ironically, I also received the property tax. The township's share dropped $4.35. Oh boy. Does anyone know a tow truck company and body shop that would fix a car for $4.35? If not, then slap the five bucks back onto my taxes and plow and salt the roads the right way, please.