The list of road and bridge closures in Wednesday’s paper was impressive — in a bad way.
There’s just simply too many roads and bridges in this county that aren’t up to par in carrying capacity for vehicular traffic.
While we so often like to point a finger at local politicians to fix our roads, the problem isn’t just here in Washington County.
When the highway system in the state was built in the 1980s, it was revolutionary.
The system made it so no person in the state lived more than a half hour away from a four-lane highway.
But it was also shortsighted.
The legislation enacting the roads program didn’t provide for its upkeep in a meaningful manner.
And we’ve been paying the same amount in a gas tax for more than 30 years.
We’d like to see one of this year’s candidates at the state level step forward and propose a tax we agree with — a gas tax increase.
For the first time in campaigning history, a person proposing a tax may actually gain support.
The people of Mississippi know we need to pay for our roads to be fixed. The easiest way to do that is with an increase in the gas tax.
Instead, our state leaders chose to create a $250 million bond and enact a lottery to pay for the repairs needed this year.
It’s just dummy.
Let those of us who use the roads pay for them through a gas tax increase, and then, here’s the real kicker, let’s be sure those funds actually go toward fixing the roads.
