Gas taxes seem to go up and up and less work gets done. Fellow taxpayers north of Rock Hill are bracing for $3 billion in road building debt.

A new North Carolina law permits public servants to borrow $300 million a year for the next 10 years for roads but not non-highway projects.

We’ll see how that works out.

Critics say voters should be able to make the final decision on any new state debt.

Advocates said more revenue is needed as fuel taxes are plateauing as more people use more efficient vehicles.

So the NC taxpayers will be penalized for their own thrift.

Congress appears to be doing little to come up with money as roads and bridges crumble. And a new report reveals how local and state officials waste billions of dollars on boondoggles.

Whether pork barrel spending or legitimate projects being delayed, billions of our tax dollars are being wasted.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group reports many highway projects are wasteful or pointless projects that are touted as needed and valuable.

The group found 9 road expansion projects costing $30 billion that are essentially useless.

None were in South Carolina, thank goodness, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have them.

The projects do little to reduce congestion or fix highways.

One is in Atlanta – an I-285 interchange project costing $596 million – while Atlanta taxpayers ask for better public transit to help them get to work.

The group found that highway expansions rarely solve congestion problems. They just dump more tourists into Myrtle Beach or families eager to move here from the north’s frozen tundra. Highway expansions draw more drivers and more congestion, just on more lanes than we had before.

When we get through building bridges to nowhere, highway expansions for tractors to run on and every driveway in Florence County, will we have a few dollars left to patch a few crumbling Lexington County roads and bridges?

– JerryBellune.com

Costly highway expansions just dump more drivers onto our local streets and roads.