I just got this in email.
Subject: Hurricane Irene Reveals Regulatory Waste
I just received my Dec-Jan “Vermont Property Owners Report” and within its pages is this little nugget of information:
“Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) announced Oct 31. that the state’s estimate for repairing state roads and bridges (not including local roads) had been drastically reduced, from an earlier estimate of $620 million to a cost of between $175 million and $250 million.”
And then later on in the same article:
“Transportation officials said the lower repair estimates came about because the state found that emergency repairs had been accomplished more cheaply without the planning and permitting costs that accompany normal road projects. Because a state of emergency had been declared, repair efforts were accomplished without such things as utility relocation, environmental mitigation, surveys, municipal coordination and legal proceedings.”
AMAZING what can be accomplished and at what REDUCED COST without all of the RED TAPE!!!
Imagine what all of the red tape costs us in reduced productivity and taxes!!!! A savings of 60-70% in road building costs…
Thank you IRENE for revealing what can be done in an EMERGENCY and what should be done EVERY DAY.
Paul
polination.blog 
The regulatory state, as much as the welfare/entitlement state, seems to be at the root of our nation’s fiscal disaster.
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I believe every word of this. On a much smaller scale, we did some emergency repairs from Hurricane Irene, for 3 different families. I told the homeowners that I just did not have time to work up bids for their insurance companies to shop around and if they wanted us to do the work then we would just do it the best and most economical way that we could, avoid building permits when there were any grey areas that I could argue about if called out about the lack of permits, and hope for the best. In every case, the insurance companies paid the customers more than our bill.
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