Half a million dollars. It could cost that much to replace the lights on the Big Dam Bridge across the Arkansas River.
Five hundred thousand dollars. In your money, Mr. and Mrs. Pulaski County Taxpayer. That's a lot of dough, but the county judge--Buddy Villines--says he's got the money in the budget. So, heck, let's spend it!
What else is money for? And what else are the county's taxpayers good for except to pay for Judge Villines' grand, spectacular Light Show and Next Gaudy Idea?
Talk about wasteful spending in technicolor, this brainstorm of the county judge's exemplifies it. All that money is due to start flowing soon--night after night.
Look, nobody's against lights. Nobody's against bridges, either. But if the cost of replacing the multi-colored lighting display on the Big Dam Bridge comes in on the low side of estimates--say, "only" $400,000--then those new 200 LED lights would cost $2,000 a pop. Yikes.
This is what can happen when you live in a high-tax state. The average sales tax paid in Arkansas hovers around 9 percent, the second highest in the country. (Second only to Tennessee, according to taxfoundation.org.) Local governments have so much money they can spend a half-million dollars on multi-colored lights for a bridge.
Then there's a local school district like Little Rock's--it can embark on still another pharaonic building spree rather than tend to the basics, like actually improving its students' performance as shown by their test scores.
Our priorities do seem out of whack. Basics are ignored while frills, like pretty lights, eat up half-a-million in appropriations.
But just try calling for a tax cut. The stock answer from high-spending county judges and school superintendents: You want to throw grandma off a cliff!
(Sigh.)
Ask yourself this: Suppose the head honchos of county government in Pulaski County were to put this brilliant (literally) idea of theirs to a public vote. That's right. If its elected leaders asked taxpayers to approve spending as much as $500,000 for this wretched excess on the Big Dam Bridge, how big a defeat do you think it would suffer at the polls? Total or only resounding?
But you might as well get ready to be soaked, local taxpayers.
The county is already meeting with contractors.
Editorial on 09/05/2014