May 29, 2015 4 min read

Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:

America’s ingenuity is crumbling from years of neglect. And many leaders who saw the thrill in building the infrastructure now lack the courage to invest the necessary funds to maintain the roads and bridges.

For more than 20 years, federal gas taxes, which pay for the bulk of federal roadwork, have remained stuck at 18.4 cents per gallon. Even as more fuel-efficient vehicles create less revenue, elected officials refused to do the right thing out of fear of voter and lobbyist retribution. Many state gas and license taxes also remained stagnant…

The problem cannot be fixed with cheap remedies. Recently, Congress introduced a two-month extension of the federal highway and mass transit program. That type of Band-Aid won’t work for roads and bridges that were neglected for years. Short-term repairs ultimately cost more and create more delays for motorists. But any attempt to create a long-term program has been met by gridlock.

West Virginia sitting near the bottom of a national ranking? Ho-hum, you say. SSDD – same stuff, different day. That’s the general reaction to such news stories.

But this time it’s different. A new survey by WalletHub said West Virginia is 44th in the tally of states that are the worst for working mothers. We are 47th in gender gap pay and 37th in child care, the survey found.

That’s appalling.

Affordable child care is one of the most important aspects a woman considers as she contemplates taking a job. After the day care bill is paid, will any of her paycheck be left to make it all worthwhile?

West Virginia is one of the leaders in the Universal Pre-K System, with 70 percent of its 4-year-olds enrolled.

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said about that program, “By focusing our attention on meeting the educational needs of our youngest children, we establish a strong foundation for academic success before their first day of kindergarten.”

Shouldn’t the same theory hold true for younger children who need a safe place to stay while their parents are working? Is it not possible for the state to use some of the same concepts to devise a day care program that will help families who have no solution to their child care issues at an affordable price?

The wage gender gap will be a tougher nut to crack. After all, we have been trying for more than 50 years now, since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed by President Kennedy.

Pay equity is the key to families making ends meet and moving working families into the middle class … Pay discrimination also limits women’s life choices and has real short- and long-term consequences.

When the U.S. Bureau of Prisons began the process of designating a federal death row and execution chamber back in the early 1990s, the people of Terre Haute, Ind. were mostly ambivalent about the prospect of the local federal prison being used for that purpose.

Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in June 2001, the first federal prisoner put to death since capital punishment was reinstituted in 1976. Since that first execution at the federal prison complex, it has become the place where condemned inmates come to die, even though few actually have. Only two others were executed here, one a week after McVeigh was put to death, and a second in 2003. In 2010, with controversy over the death penalty swirling nationwide, the U.S. Department of Justice effectively put a moratorium on executions in the federal system while all policies and procedures of the process are reviewed.

Today, there are 55 federal inmates on death row at the Terre Haute prison. But no executions are scheduled. Don’t expect them to resume any time soon.