Here’s why the rich get richer

In an interesting report out of Troup County, it appears that local government officials are complaining because the state Department of Transportation won’t pay the full costs of resurfacing the access roads to the proposed Kia auto assembly plant (a repair project with an estimated cost of about $1 million).

I’m not a highway engineer, but WTF?  Why shouldn’t Kia have to do what every other

citizen in Georgia does and pay for their own road?   That’s

what I do in my part of DeKalb County. 

The county fixes potholes and makes repairs to my street when they are

needed.  In return, I pay the county

several thousand dollars in property taxes each year.  When I need a road repaired, I also realize that

I’m ultimately going to pay for it.

Now, I’m just a working guy of modest means.  If I can pay for my own road repairs, then

why the hell can’t a bunch of Kia executives whose combined yearly compensation

totals in the billions pay for their road repairs in Troup County?

On top of all that: 

when Gov. Sonny Perdue persuaded Kia to locate that auto plant here, he

promised the company $410 million worth of financial incentives from state and

local governments. 

I think $410 million is more than enough. Are we expected to pony up another million bucks or so every

time one of the plant’s access roads needs to be resurfaced?  When does this generosity end?  Or does it ever end?

There is also the small fact that DOT has a budget deficit estimated at more than $400 million, in part because Perdue insisted several years ago that the department speed up its highway projects before the funds were ever received for them.  DOT can’t afford to fix anyone’s roads right now — an even more compelling reason for our friends at Kia to dig deep and come up with the money.