By JT Szabo

I recently came across an interesting piece of information on how our state government wanted to spend a percentage of it's impending Federal stimulus cash.

Now, like a lot of you, I've been around Ohio for quite a while, and unfortunately I was rather unsurprised to find out that our Governor wanted to allocate close to 10% of the Federal stimulus monies destined for infrastructure...to TRAFFIC STUDIES.

Studies, of course meaning paying an outrageous sum of money to a "consulting firm" who gathers data on how roads are used. Sound like a racket? It pretty much is. Hmmmmm. How are Ohio's roadways being used? The answer, unfortunately, is increasingly becoming "to get out of Ohio". But that's for an entirely different rant.

My point today is simple. Ohio's leadership felt it much more important to dedicate a lot of money to "study" our roadways, while our actual roadways rot and deteriorate continuously. Oh, and by the way..."studies" don't "Stimulate" anything more than the consultant's wallet.

Fortunately, dear old Uncle Sam felt it necessary to step in and tell our Ohio leaders that they were essentially missing the point. And not a moment too soon, as our economy is firmly strapping itself in for the full brunt of the automotive shutdowns coming soon.

The Feds claimed that they would rather see the "Stimulus" money go to actual construction projects that, you guessed it, would stimulate construction jobs, and therefore our local, regional and eventually national economies.

So, today I will play the part of "Pro-Federal" and congratulate them for stepping in and preventing our Ohio leadership from making a huge mistake that could cost us all in the long run.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments. 

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