Transportation is not the state’s only underfinanced program, but it is in a unique position when talking about the consequences of its budget. Health and human services agencies don’t get to talk about how many more people will get sick or die if their financing is cut. It is somewhere between difficult and impossible to tie public school performance to state financing, if only because so many other variables muddle the numbers. Regulatory agencies don’t wave around projections on how many industrial plants won’t be inspected and what the consequences might be.

You have to admire the honesty of the transportation people. This is what you spend, and that is what you get. Cut spending, cut expectations. Easy as pie. They seem to be in one of the rare areas of state government where the people involved are allowed to say right out loud what a budget decision will actually mean.

Others have to say they will do more with less, a way of saying that they either didn’t need as much money to do the job as they first thought or that they hope the corners they cut to save money won’t cause anyone any trouble — or at least any trouble that will get noticed by voters and politicians.

Roads have another characteristic not shared by most state services: they are visible, and we all use them. Most Texans are not involved with public schools on a daily basis, or with the health and human services safety net, or even with regulators or state police.

But the roads are right there, every day, in all their glory, with potholes and construction projects and traffic jams growing worse as more people, and more cars, flow into Texas.

That visibility makes a difference. Texas residents can see the quality of one of the government services they pay for. In some places, they’re finding gravel where there once was pavement. Other state programs have their equivalents of the gravel roads. They’re just not allowed to talk about it.