Thursday, September 28, 2006
Caliche politics
Several years ago, I lived in South Texas for a brief stint. Most of the area was rural and poor, with dirt roads. My host told me that from time to time, the roads would be improved when authorities would cover them with a local type of gravel, known in this predominantly Spanish-speaking area as "caliche."
Interestingly, the caliche always seemed to get put down on the roads right around election time. So the phrase "caliche politics" came to mean the practice of well-timed increases public works spending to help incumbents gain re-election.
If you've ever made summer road trips, you've seen caliche politics at work -- the way there is always more road repair work in summers before elections.
This summer and fall, we have experienced an explosive, orgiastic, extravaganza of construction. Everywhere you turn, a road or sideway is blocked off, buildings have been torn down or are going up, roads are being torn up and reinstalled -- even where they were just torn up and reinstalled the previous year. Cement-mixers, earth-movers, dump trucks, porto-potties, and all the equipment and trappings of construction line the streets like so many parked SUVs.
Construction is a big, state-wide industry, and construction companies are big donors to state political campaigns. And lots of construction means an employment boom for construction workers. From the standpoint of incumbent politicians, it's win-win.
At a local construction excavation, right there on the fence, right next to the big sign bearning the name of the construction company, is a campaign poster for the incumbent state official who's up for re-election this November. How appropriate.
Interestingly, the caliche always seemed to get put down on the roads right around election time. So the phrase "caliche politics" came to mean the practice of well-timed increases public works spending to help incumbents gain re-election.
If you've ever made summer road trips, you've seen caliche politics at work -- the way there is always more road repair work in summers before elections.
This summer and fall, we have experienced an explosive, orgiastic, extravaganza of construction. Everywhere you turn, a road or sideway is blocked off, buildings have been torn down or are going up, roads are being torn up and reinstalled -- even where they were just torn up and reinstalled the previous year. Cement-mixers, earth-movers, dump trucks, porto-potties, and all the equipment and trappings of construction line the streets like so many parked SUVs.
Construction is a big, state-wide industry, and construction companies are big donors to state political campaigns. And lots of construction means an employment boom for construction workers. From the standpoint of incumbent politicians, it's win-win.
At a local construction excavation, right there on the fence, right next to the big sign bearning the name of the construction company, is a campaign poster for the incumbent state official who's up for re-election this November. How appropriate.
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Roads are always under repair around here. They've been re-doing the bridges over the Raritan river for the past *4* years - and are almost done, so they decided to finally re-do the overpass of 2 big highways near my house. It's about time, because that overpass didn't look like it would bear the traffic for too much longer.
I don't mind terribly, but what irks me at the moment is that the water company dug our street up to replace the water mains (needed to be done for quite a while), and the city will repave all the roads *except* ours. Firgures.
In our state, we get a "homestead rebate" check in the mail (usually between 300 and 500 dollars) right around election time. If they eliminated the rebate and just lowered the state taxes(which fund this "rebate") by the amount of the rebate AND the processing/mailing of the checks, we'd be getting way more than 500 dollars back. But then, we wouldn't have a wad of cash from the incumbents right before election time.
Are there any people that actually BUY this ruse?
But I suppose if politicians didn't do this before election time, nothing would get fixed at all. (like us fixing our house up to put it on the market to sell - it's quite lovely right now, and there is actually floor in my home office, and you can SEE it now)
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qcsqhyy - quick square why? (a) because you want to calculate the square footage of your house (b) becuase you are making a quilt in a hurry.
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I don't mind terribly, but what irks me at the moment is that the water company dug our street up to replace the water mains (needed to be done for quite a while), and the city will repave all the roads *except* ours. Firgures.
In our state, we get a "homestead rebate" check in the mail (usually between 300 and 500 dollars) right around election time. If they eliminated the rebate and just lowered the state taxes(which fund this "rebate") by the amount of the rebate AND the processing/mailing of the checks, we'd be getting way more than 500 dollars back. But then, we wouldn't have a wad of cash from the incumbents right before election time.
Are there any people that actually BUY this ruse?
But I suppose if politicians didn't do this before election time, nothing would get fixed at all. (like us fixing our house up to put it on the market to sell - it's quite lovely right now, and there is actually floor in my home office, and you can SEE it now)
---
qcsqhyy - quick square why? (a) because you want to calculate the square footage of your house (b) becuase you are making a quilt in a hurry.
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