Today, I welcome the first contribution of Randy Pace to BrianHornback.Com Pace will be providing some thought provoking content about whatever he sees and inspects. His second installment is about the TN Improve Act.
TN Improve Act: Sources close to the White House can mean the bum sleeping on a steam grate on Pennsylvania Ave. If the public knew that they were being given information from a less than reliable source, or one with an agenda that is not in the publics actual best interest they would be less inclined to believe it would they not? Over the past few days and over the coming weeks we will be provided a sampling of this information brought to you by members the State Legislature, the Governor and the lobbyists that your tax dollars paid for. They will provide prepared heartfelt statements from Senators (identical except for the name), the Lt Governor and public employees. All who will be enriched by the lucrative contracts and spending windfall that the recent gas tax provides. The balance of the remaining surplus that the increase creates in the transportation fund annually will be transferred to the general fund and used as it has in the past, to fund pork spending. Raising revenue is just another way of saying raising taxes. While the steam grate folks reference the hundreds of millions in cuts made over the past several years they make no mention of the increase in spending overall nor do they reference the reduction in TDOT’s budget over the same period. If we continue to pay 10-15 times the actual cost for road projects like the ones in our own back yard we will always fall short in transportation funding. If we continue to pay lobbyists to communicate with the public about poor policies we have little hope of ever getting reliable information. Make no mistake, the bums on the steam grates won this round. The public has been hood-winked “don’t let anyone tell you different”.
*Randy Pace a retired chief petty officer moved to Knoxville in 2014 shortly after being elected to a second term as a councilman in Medford, N.J. He served as mayor during his first term. Pace quit his elected position when he and his family moved to Knox County, because of his wife’s career move to Oak Ridge, TN
