Messin' With Texas: Un-Paving Roads Rather Than Raising Taxes

I still can't quite wrap my head around this. Big oil has a boom in Texas. Big Oil makes more profits than any other industry ever has in the history of man. Their trucks are tearing up the roads. Texas is having a hard time paying for the roads, so. . .they're un-paving them! Not raising taxes on the oil companies, or figuring out some other sort of pay-for-play arrangement.

Their unofficial slogan is "Don't Mess With Texas." Maybe that's because Texas is already a hot mess.

[Excerpt]

Texas Converts 80 Miles Of Paved Road To Gravel Thanks To Lack Of Funds

Finding that thanks to shortfalls the budget is not equipped to handle safety upgrades on paved roads, the Texas Department of Transportation began converting 80 miles of roads to gravel on Monday.
Texas DOT spokesman David Glessner told the Texas Tribune that a lack of funding meant its “only option to make [roads] safer is to turn them into gravel roads.” For safety reasons, some speed limits on the unpaved roads will also be lowered to 30 mph. . .

Read more at: Think Progress