Time for more outrage

Is this becoming a Friday Feature? Who knows.

But here's a fascinating story from the New York Times, about lots of money budgeted for a road -- to nowhere? Campaign Funds for Alaskan; Road Aid to Florida. Seems Rep. Don Young of Alaska got an earmark provision inserted into a transportation bill for $10 million worth of improvements to Coconut Road, near Ft. Myers. And it seems that the local government didn't request the money, but a wealthy developer who contributes to Rep. Young owns lots of acreage along it. Don't you just love these stories?

And here's something that validates what a lot of us have been thinking about the state of our country these days: In something called The Crisis Papers, a study by Ernest Partridge, A Failed Experiment. Says Prof. Partridge:

On January 20, 1981, in his first inaugural address, Ronald Reagan told the nation: "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."
Thus began a grand experiment: Release the American economy from the bonds of government regulation.
...Twenty-six years later, what do we have? A dismantled and “outsourced” industrial base, an impoverished work force, a nine trillion dollar debt burden upon future generations, and a degradation of education and scientific research, and a captive media that deprives the public of essential news as it issues outright lies.
...The grand experiment has failed, and we are just beginning to realize the enormous costs of that failure.