How to Read a Newspaper (1): Across the Fruited Plain

When your job is documenting how conservatism has failed America, the newspaper looks different. Take yesterday's USA Today - specifically, that silly page no one reads with a tiny news item from every state. Fifty dots, ones never intended to be connected into a common tale, except the
one entitled, "Here's Some Stuff that Happened on April 25, 2007."

Connect them, however, as data points in the consequences of the national experiment of giving conservatives the keys all three branches to our government, and something more coherent emerges.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Columbia -

State lawmakers have started debating two spending plans that could shave pennies off grocery bills or trim income taxes for wealthier residents. The grocery tax cut would save shoppers $1 for each $100 spent and eliminate the tax in the future. Gov. Sanford contends that reducing the
state's income tax for top earners would spur the economy.

The bottom line, in other words: save a couple of bucks a week on groceries if you're an ordinary Joe or Jane. Save tens of thousands a year on income taxes if you're a "top earner." Madness. But entirely consistent with conservative "philosophy," which claims that helping ordinary people might
make them lazy and indolent, but that "reducing the top marginal rate," something that effects only rich people, makes the world a better place - the "trickle down" theory that one of its very architects, Reagan budget director David Stockman, admitted actually created "fiscal catastrophe." [1]

Did someone say fiscal catastrophe? Travel with us to neighboring Tennessee...

TENNESSEE: Chattanooga -

The rising cost of oil and the strong demand for concrete have slowed some state highway projects. Costs have climbed 24% from 2004, officials said. To combat the problem, officials are using a thinner application of asphalt in some projects. A dozen road construction projects have been
delayed, but none were canceled, according to state Department of Transportation.

Commodity prices sometimes increase sharply and without warning; that's a fact of life. But before conservatives got hold of them, governments practiced a radical notion: socking away spare money for just such unexpected emerges in "rainy day" funds. When politicians started claiming the most
noble thing they could do was cut or never, ever raise taxes, this is the natural result: thinner applications of asphalt, even as streets around the nation have started opening up [2] and swallowing cars [3] because the pipes underneath them [4] are rotten.

The federal government used to help much more. Now, thanks to federal tax cuts, they can't. And as I pointed out before [2], Bush tax cuts lead inevitably to tax hikes in municipalities. Travel with me to lovely Fresno
County, California...

CALIFORNIA: Los Osnos -

A water rate increase for some 8,000 customers of the city's Community Services District means that they'll be paying 20% more for water starting May 19. The district board said the increase is needed to keep water flowing. The district filed for federal bankruptcy protection last year to
deal with nearly $40 million in debt.

We'll continue our travels this afternoon. Three more states to write about!