There was a diary yesterday about how GOP policies kill. That was echoed in a Bloomberg article today: Death Roils Texas as State Leads U.S. in Road Fatalities
Some highlights:
While speeding and driver error played a role in many wrecks, the increasing fatalities in the Odessa region show the deadly consequences of insufficient transportation investment, said Ector County Judge Susan Redford, chairwoman of the Midland Odessa Transportation Organization board. Odessa illustrates the nation’s failure to fix its infrastructure: The quality of U.S. roadways is bad and getting worse, with the World Economic Forum ranking them 16th worldwide, down from eighth five years earlier.
Texas alone falls $4 billion short each year for what it needs to maintain the system it has because, as a state transportation committee noted, current funding levels are “unacceptable.”
“People are dying because of the infrastructure,” said Jami Owen, a Midland resident who pushed to get a local highway expanded after her spouse, Mark, perished in a 2009 head-on crash. “My husband died because of the infrastructure.”
The state, which has been run by Republican Governor Rick Perry for almost 14 years, has been reluctant to raise taxes.
How much clearer can this get? Republican polices kill. Governments, at least in the US, exist to promote the general welfare of the people. That doesn't come free, and when it isn't funded it doesn't get done. When it doesn't get done, people die. To quote the TP's favorite document:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Maybe the GOP/TP should read their founding document, at least the 1st paragraph. They should read it every day until they understand it. Then read it again. Then instead of "drowning the government in a bathtub" they might begin to insist that the government do the things it was created to do, including "promote the general welfare".