June. That’s when the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission now is expected to make its final decision on the fate of the last and northern leg of the Mon-Fayette Expressway.
The commission tabled the project last month; the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission then halted design-related activities.
The final leg of the toll road — 14 miles from Jefferson to Monroeville — carries an estimated price tag of about $2 billion. That cost is sure to rise. And the estimated time to complete the project — 20 years — has not endeared planners.
Worse, economic benefit projections are dubious on their face.
The Post-Gazette reports that one public official who first opposed continuing with the project has changed his mind. The rationale? Money earmarked for the expressway can’t be transferred to other regional transportation needs, says the Allegheny County chief executive.
So spend it still on a questionable project?
That said, money is fungible. And isn’t it funny how governments always seem to find ways to redirect dollars that, supposedly, only can be used for one project but, presto changeo, end up being earmarked for others?
The bottom line remains that there are better — and more immediate — ways to improve transportation to, from and in the Mon Valley.
The Wolf administration, pushing ever harder to convince the Pennsylvania Legislature to approve a whopping increase in the state-mandated minimum wage, has placed a new carrot on a stick.
It contends that raising the wage from from $7.25 to $12 — a 65.5 percent increase — would save nearly $50 million in public benefits costs. That’s because, the administration claims, about 100,000 people would make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid.
So, will those same people use their “raise” to go out and buy health insurance? Will they buy into some ObamaCare plan that, also subsidized, merely shifts some, all or more of the burden? Or will already overburdened hospital emergency rooms become their “doctors” of choice?
The bottom line here is that government wage floors by diktat — those not based on value to employer and productivity — result in fewer entry-level jobs. And those losses tend to hurt minorities the most.
What of the increased burden to the public purse of that inconvenient economic and societal truth?
Some of the first farmers’ markets in the region will be up and running by the end of April. As The Times of Beaver County reports, citing U.S. Department of Agriculture Statistics, the number of such markets nationally increased by 394 percent between 1994 and 2016.
And the USDA says the value of food sold at those markets doubled between 1992 and 2012 when sales hit $1.4 billion.
But here’s another thing to consider as well, especially in this season of renewal:
First, imagine more and more people, no matter rural or suburban or country, planting gardens.
Then, imagine that every gardener planted just a bit extra.
And then imagine that those bits extra were shared — with the elderly, with the poor and with food banks serving those of lesser means.
Then, too, imagine, helping those of lesser means planting their own gardens and, with that, the seeds of less dependence?
How much “government money” would be saved? How much less would we have to rely on government? How much lower might our taxes be? The bottom line could be mighty impressive.
Government too often is a Leviathan that lords over every facet of life. Growing a garden, and sharing from that garden while teaching gardening skills, is one small way that could turn into a big way to begin beating back Leviathan’s ever growing intrusive forces.
Naive? Perhaps. But journeys do begin with first steps. And the more steps we take reclaim our independence, the better off the United States of America will be.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
