The Federal government, specifically the Federal Highway Administration, is spending $1.2 billion of your money to nationalize the 511 highway traffic reporting system, replicating what Yahoo, Google, Navteq, and others are already doing. This is a great example of the overreach that is endemic to the Federal government but what is really troubling about it is that they are forcing significant expenditures upon states at a time when states across the country are running cumulative deficits of $145 billion and growing.

This is the kind of initiative that the Federal government should stay out of… $1.2 billion (plus whatever the states will have to spend) may not sound like a lot of money in an age when we throw around “a trillion” without a measure of shock to go with it, but this is real money for which ROI will be difficult to achieve in light of the fact that the private sector is already doing it.