“GIVING MONEY AND POWER TO GOVERNMENT IS LIKE
GIVING WHISKEY AND CAR KEYS TO TEENAGE BOYS.”
P.J. O’Rourke
Open up the Wichita Eagle and the story jumps out at me that the new Governor and others are suddenly conscious about the diversion of KDOT Highway monies to fund the deficit has to stop. Well I’ll be!
I have written many times on this subject. At least 5 Governor campaigns that I remember in the past ran on keeping the KDOT money in their fund and not stealing it to keep the deficit from looking too bad. In fact one of those governors (who went on to Washington) took so much out that KDOT employees told me that it would take Kansas 20 years to recover the set backs to the budget from that one administration.
We are still behind from that time and at some point a governor declared that we had completed the long term highway plan. WHAT! There is a project from that plan at least 3 or 4 governors ago that is still setting not being completed. The plans are still posted on the courthouse walls and it is a big joke.
The legislature has not been a lot better since it is never finished with it’s business until long after they are supposed to go home. Spending millions for over time sessions.
The biggest worry that the newest funding grant possibilities coming from Washington, is how we can keep the legislature and governor from stealing from the block grants and divert the money again!
You can come up with all the words to describe taking money away from the highway fund but it is still stealing. another department of state government diverted federal funds for other purposes and almost got us in trouble. Somehow the state got away with not paying the penalties. The department director then hired onto a federal agency leaving the destruction in his wake.
It is time that the D and R designations in Topeka were put aside and the Kansan replace it in the legislature and governors office. As a stern parent once put it, “don’t make me come back and catch you doing this again!”
With this stern lecture does anyone think things will change? If you do stand on your head and dance around church.
