Mark Steyn writes in National Review April 16, 2011

Losing the Future

excerpt

That’s the choice, is it? Multi-trillion-dollar government “investment” or a nation of potholes? America “invests” a lot in roads. It has more highway signs than almost any other country: not just mile markers but fifth-of-a-mile markers; not just “Stop” signs, but four-way “Stop” signs, and “Stop Sign Ahead” signs, and one day soon “Stop Sign Ahead Sign Ahead” signs. America also has the worst automobile fatality rate in the developed world, in part because there’s so much fascinating reading material on the shoulder. Our automobile fatality rate is three times that of the Netherlands, about the same as Albania’s, down at 62 in the global rankings, just ahead of Tajikistan and Papua New Guinea. But don’t worry, if we ever do become “a nation of potholes,” you can bet there’ll be federally mandated “Pothole Ahead” signs in front of each one.

Anything else? “Our airports,” continued the president, “would be worse than places that we used to call the Third World, but who are now investing in infrastructure.” Maybe he should get out of the motorcade once in a while and swing by LAX or LaGuardia: They’re already decrepit cheerless dumps, mainly because they’ve been lavishly governmentalized into bureaucratic holding pens through which the citizenry dutifully shuffle while armies of crack TSA operatives poke around in the panties of six-year-old girls.

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