The Federal Government is telling towns around the country their street signs don't work anymore. A new 800 plus page law distributed in a book called the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices are forcing the smallest towns to the biggest cities across America to throw out their current street signs and comply with the new federal government mandates on street signs.
That's right, I said street signs, those traditionally green and reflective white signs at the corners of intersections that allow drivers to know where to turn. The sin of these signs? Well, it's simply the font they used.
The federal government is forcing, with no Constitutional authority of course, towns and cities around the country to replace these signs simply because they are written in all caps. Through spending millions of dollars of your tax money, the federal government has determined through their research lower case letters provide safer traffic. I am not kidding. I wish I was.
If you want to know just how out of control the federal government is with power, look not further than this Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices book. Any government that can over power states' rights provided by a written Constitution and force them to replace hundreds of thousands of signs in their state and the towns within is a government that has too much power.
By the way, we aren't just talking the corner street signs too. We are talking about all the information signs you see on state highways too. It may be mileage and direction signs, and whatever other sign they demand. I don't know if you know it, but a recent decision by the city of Springfield, Missouri, to promote tourism in the city produced a $600,000 plus bill for the city with signs costing up to $600 a piece. We are talking about a flat piece of metal with some paint on it. The cost of this to communities across the country, which are already cash strapped, will be staggering.
The bill requires the signs to be changed by 2012. It also states that on roadways that the speed limit is more than 25 mph hour, the four inch font must be changed to 6 inch font. Shouldn't this all be decided by the states and the towns? What right does the federal government have in telling these states and towns they must change all these signs? Oh, that's right, it comes from the fact that tax dollars leave the state and states must fight and comply to get these tax dollars back in their communities.
This is why Jeff Wisdom would have made a good Congressman in Southwest Missouri. He understood the power the states sacrificed with the federal income tax and other taxes and how it makes the states beggars to the federal government. His plan put a stop to this. Unfortunately we get Billy Long instead, who isn't smart enough to recognize this federal tyranny as he continues to embrace the establishment.
