Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 1, 1992 TAG: 9202280212
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Virginia Tech and the business leaders backing the route have successfully made their case to state and local officials that the road would promote economic development, improve ties between the Roanoke and New River valleys and allow Tech to step into the high-tech field of transportation research.
Economic development for our valley has to concern us all at a time when we face losing jobs in the defense industry and other manufacturing sectors.
Yet, I also understood the concern of Ellett Valley residents that the road would damage the beauty and isolation of a unique rural area in Montgomery County. Fortunately, the state board eliminated an interchange in the heart of that valley that could have spurred development in an area best left undisturbed.
But the most difficult issue the smart highway poses for me is one of priorities.
We're a society that measures importance by where we spend our dollars. "Put your money where your mouth is" is the ultimate test of what we consider important.
So, we're going to spend more than $80 million on the Blacksburg-Roanoke link.
The General Assembly also is wrangling over spending another $600 million to $1 billion on a bond issue that would finance badly needed state projects, including up to $43.7 million worth of construction and renovation at Tech. A $1 billion bond issue also would finance several highway projects, including $28 million for the Blacksburg link.
Yet, at the same time state leaders are considering spending multimillions for concrete projects, legislators also quickly cut $5 million from the state budget that would haveextended health care coverage to low-income children up to age 1 who now have no medical coverage.
They are still arguing over another $7.6 million proposal to extend Medicaid coverage to care for the state's poorest children up to age 18, rather than cutting them off at age 8 or 9.
This strikes me as the latest shrug of indifference in the past several years from state and federal government toward low-income families and children.
What do we expect to become of these children who grow up without adequate health care, who can't get a Head Start because of lack of funding, who attend the poorest schools.
At a time when we are so concerned about our state's economic development and our national competitiveness, shouldn't we be as concerned about the children who will be our work force by 2005 as we are about the structures that will carry our commerce into the next century?
I don't see how we can afford to write off children we classify as "low income." They are becoming a larger and larger proportion of our population.
Nor are they unknown in the New River Valley where the recession has brought a sharp increase in the number of families needing government and private assistance.
It would be unfair to imply that our choice is "either-or." The smart highway is not taking money from health programs.
It just poses the latest question of priorities.
Certainly, if we have $80 million to build a high-tech highway, we can somehow in our society - which even in the midst of recession is wealthy beyond most nations' dreams - find the compassion and the dollars to care for the least and youngest among us.
Elizabeth Obenshain is the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River editor.
by CNB