I can’t imagine many roles for government more appropriate and more important than ensuring safe, well-maintained roads wherever there’s a need for them.

And despite all the right-wing hatred of government, I find it hard to believe that many of us think we’ll end up paying less and getting better service if our roads are run by private firms who charge tolls by the mile.

So I’ve always been puzzled by the lack of “road rage” over our state’s chronic underfunding of its (granted, unusually large) state-run secondary road system.

Our rural roads are crumbling and are barely improved since they carried farm produce to market. You only have to read our newspaper, let alone pore over statistics, to know that driving on them is a death wish.

No one should have been surprised, then, that State Rep. Dan Cooper, R-Piedmont, the chairman of the House budget writing committee, wants to make it someone else’s problem — by suggesting counties take over responsibility for them.

As cars become more fuel efficient, our more-or-less exclusively gas-tax supported state transportation department is obviously going to struggle to pay for road needs without a tax increase.

And that doesn’t factor in the skyrocketing price of oil that makes pavement much pricier.

Or the rapid residential and commercial growth in suburban areas that creates ever-greater demands for improvements to — you guessed it! — old farm-to-market secondary roads.

It wasn’t surprising, either, that Anderson County Administrator Joey Preston ordered up some financial kung fu to conclude that transferring the burden for 469 road miles would cost local taxpayers $5.3 million per year and — you guessed it! — bankrupt Anderson County.

And that wasn’t taking into account a one-time cost of $87 million to take care of a repair backlog, the study found.

Rep. Cooper’s idea is cute. I’ll give you that.

But in this case, I think the county’s guilty of being Chicken Little: Isn’t it mulling a proposal for a 1-cent capital projects sales tax that would generate $150 million over 7 years?

If our concern is maintaining our local roads, more local responsibility makes it more likely residents will support extra spending knowing it will stay close to home.

And there’s at least the chance of more local control (and less pork barrel politics) regarding which roads are made priorities.

My only quibble is why the state is OK about forcing local governments to cover the cost with property taxes, road fees and sales taxes that have no direct relationship to the amount people drive.

I’d like to see an option for a local 1-cent gas tax. It’s fairer, and with 40 miles of Interstate 85 frontage, Anderson and Oconee counties likely will make out well from truckers alone.

Rep. Cooper’s proposal may face a tough legislative road ahead. But I say, “Let’s roll with it!”