I think I am even slower, but the way I see it the government spent 8 million bucks to have someone drive a backhoe and a bulldozer down the Darrington road to fix it. How is that any different than the government paying congressmen to make a law providing for civil rights, banning slavery, then paying courts and police officers to enfore them. 
  
8 million bucks out of our pocket is 8 million bucks, some of it goes to fixing roads, some of it goes to making and enforcing laws.  
  
I'm going to strangle you. 
The laws they were enforcing with our money were against our (changing) wishes. They wouldn't change them when we "asked". Then we had to force them to.  
I am signing off now, I'll check back with you later. I know you will have figured it out by then--you have an MBA for gods sake.