IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO drive anywhere in South Carolina without literally coming into contact with the lousy job our state does maintaining the roads. A 2003 study by The Road Information Program found that a third of the state-maintained roads in South Carolina are in poor condition. From potholes and uneven pavement in the cities to surfaces that are crumbling away at the edges in rural areas, these poorly designed and maintained roads are costing lives and money.

Because we have too many state-owned roads and we rely too heavily on a gasoline tax whose revenue hasn’t grown with the traffic, we have long been falling behind on routine maintenance. But the problem accelerated in 1998, when the Congress made more road construction money available to South Carolina — and also doubled the portion of new road projects the state must fund. The Transportation Commission responded by tapping our inadequate road repair fund to come up with the state match to pull down federal road-building money. The result is that today, the roads are in such bad shape that it soon will be impossible to repair some of them; they will have to be completely rebuilt.

Initially, most lawmakers ignored the problem. But finally, the business community has made enough noise about how deteriorating roads are hindering economic development and adding to business costs that lawmakers acknowledge something must be done.

A bill up for final approval in the House today would create a special fund dedicated to maintaining and repairing state secondary roads. The legislation, sponsored by Ways and Means Chairman Bobby Harrell and half of his House colleagues, would generate about $70 million a year, from driver’s license and vehicle registration fees and other road-use charges. That would begin to chip away at the $540 million that is needed every year to reduce a $2 billion repair backlog, and using vehicle and driver charges would help diversify state highway funding, which relies far too heavily on the long-stagnant gasoline tax.

But the money would go to what might be the most autonomous agency in the government, and do it at a time when serious and troubling questions are being raised about the agency’s spending and management practices. Any additional funding should be accompanied, at a minimum, by reform measures that will make the agency accountable to the public.

Even more troubling, the proposal would take millions of dollars from the rest of government. It would be one thing if the Legislature were eliminating tens of millions of dollars worth of programs the state can do without, and channeling that funding into road maintenance. But the Legislature has refused to do that, so this bill will divert money from other, more immediate, needs that the state already is shortchanging, from paying for prison operations and Highway Patrol troopers to caring for the dangerously mentally ill and providing schools with the help they need to improve.

We simply cannot afford to do that.

There is no question that we have to find a way to maintain our crumbling infrastructure, from highways to school buses to government buildings. But we also have to pay for essential state services. That means either eliminating some programs the state can do without, or else raising taxes. The choice is up to legislators. But they must choose. They can’t go on pretending that there’s enough money to do everything they want to do — as this bill does — because there simply is not.