As legislators, we receive calendars – a lot of them every year – from a variety of special interest groups. One of the most unusual this year was the calendar from Pike Industries. The picture for each month was simply the picture of a road that needed repair. These are roads with deep fissures, cracks, potholes and sinkholes. They include every type of road, from our interstate highways to our main streets. They are in the cities and up in the mountains. And their condition is pathetic.

January’s calendar picture is of Route 106 in Leeds, soon followed by I-295 in Topsham. In March we have Commercial Street in Portland and then we go to Rt. 77 in Falmouth. There are 12 pictures in the calendar but there is certainly enough “ugly road” subject matter out there for calendars for the next century. Pike Industries wants our roads fixed.

And who could blame them? Our roads are a disgrace. Yet every year Maine’s highways and bridges are given nonessential status in favor of other budget priorities. Our transportation budget has shrunk from 25 percent of total state revenues in 1975 to a mere 10 percent today.

We fully fund without question any number of social service, economic development and experimental education and health programs, but our roads and bridges – one of the basic functions of state government – go wanting.

Consider our incalculable Medicaid program. We have the highest percentage of our population on Medicaid of any state (21 percent, or 260,000 people) and we are paying 90 percent more than the national average per enrollee. Incredibly, this program continues to expand and is fully funded without borrowing, while our essential infrastructure disintegrates.

Consider the $54 million recently wasted on the Department of Health and Human Services computer system. There was no bonding for that. This computer system, which was fully funded in the budget, is now being scrapped. Obviously, but it was a bigger priority to the administration than fixing our bridges.

Consider the Maine government employees’ out-of-state travel budget. Since 2004, Maine taxpayers have footed the bill for more than $9.4 million worth of these junkets, on smooth out-of-state roads, while at home our roadways are left to crack and heave.

And, ironically, we also spend more than $200 million a year on economic development programs. Yet what could be a better economic development program than smooth, level roads? What expansion-minded business owner wants to open a branch here when he leaves an exploratory trip to Maine with damage to his car – perhaps a bent axle or chewed-up tires? Will tourists want to return to Maine after experiencing our bone-jarring roads?

We give generous raises and higher benefit packages to state workers (51 percent higher than average private sector pay); we buy laptop computers for junior high kids, and we have earned the reputation as one of the most welfare-friendly states in the country. But the maintenance of our roads and bridges depends on borrowed money to be paid back by others, sometime in the future. There are hundreds of other programs and positions – all supported by good intentions and defended by beneficiaries – that seem to take priority.

There are two reasons why there never is quite enough cash in the state budget for our highways. One, as already mentioned, is that our state has other priorities than our transportation system, a system on which our entire economy and indeed our lives and the lives of our families depend.

The other reason is that we use Transportation Fund money for purposes other than roads and bridges. Because the definition of what can and can’t be a legitimate expense from the Transportation Fund is slightly vague, politicians have been able to get at the money in a variety of imaginative ways. Without a new, clear definition, this siphoning of funds away from our roads and bridges will only continue.

A sizable highway bond bill has already been submitted this year. This bonding for highway maintenance enables politicians to continue to underfund our transportation infrastructure through the budget and reprioritize the budget in favor of other programs.

This year we are over a barrel. Our state government has simply allowed things to go too far. Either we borrow money to fix our roads or they will be allowed to deteriorate even further. Our already-anemic economy that depends on these roads will begin to go into shock.

Borrowing long-term money is a poor way to maintain Maine’s highways. It results in a “feast or famine” situation for road contractors and ultimately allows our roads to deteriorate and maintenance costs to soar. Highways should be funded with a steady revenue stream that allows contractors to keep an experienced crew and assures constant ongoing maintenance and repair. Highway bonds should only be used for major renovations and new construction or unfortunate emergency situations, such as we’re in now.

It is unlikely that Pike Industries will run out of “bad road pictures” for its calendars any time soon.

Rep. Jon McKane, R-Newcastle, serves on the Legislature’s Insurance and Financial Services Committee.