We have yet another charity that we can help for pennies a day. Yes, friends for just over $1 a week, you can feed an Arkansas legislator’s soul. He or she will feel satisfied now and for two more years, for having fulfilled a campaign promise. You can keep the change, too.
Gov. Mike Beebe heard “Tax cut, tax cut. We don’t pay much — look at what we have to show for it, hick-hick — and we want to pay less.” The inherently unfair sales tax on groceries was Beebe’s obvious choice. The state’s take of 6 percent will halve to 3 percent on July 1. Localities charging another penny or three will keep their shares.
“That will save Arkansas households about $50 a year per person, the state says,” according to this report.
You get the money, yet your representative and senator from down the block will feel so good. You thought they felt good about pocketing it? A buck a week? What costs under a buck at Starbucks? They don’t want it as it’s not worth walking around for; you can keep it.
Your $50 extra and my $50 in FY 2008, in purchased unprepared food, will cut the state $122.1 million in the next fiscal year then in FY 2009 reduces the treasury $131.2 million, the article states.
So you want the straightaway highway to the almost-10-year-old Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport that never got laid? It’s an example.
This report says each mile of pavement costs a minimum of $1 million per mile per lane, and that’s without overpasses, exit ramps, or buying the rights of way, or crews to move the cones around to keep existing lanes open. The article says it’s closer to $7.5 million per lane per mile, and that’s often low.
We won’t go into education needs. This is now the law so I won’t write about this again anytime soon.
Meanwhile, you noticed, the article is out of California, so cut the estimate in half. Go ahead. While you’ve got the calculator out, multiply in the rest of the state’s lousy roads and make a wild calculation on miles. XNA from the closest spot on I-540 is maybe about 15 miles. That’s $112.5 million. You want to drive back? It’ll cost you $225 million. Oh, half off here, not those West Coast prices. But shoulders, center turn lane, those will cost you extra, pal. Unfortunately, that money just left the (proposed light-rail) station.
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