A Collapsing Bridge To The 21st Century
Posted September 23rd, 2007 by Da King
After the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapsed, leaving 13 people dead, much was said about our misplaced state and federal spending priorities. The mainstream media and the Democrats (which might seem like two separate entities, but are actually one and the same) mostly blamed Bush, citing the high cost of the Iraq war, or blamed poor Republican leadership in general, with statements like "Republicans are for less government, so of course infrastructure is going to deteriorate. Republicans favor tax cuts for the rich, so they don't care if your family members are killed by collapsing bridges as long as Halliburton stockholders can increase their bottom line". We will set aside for the moment that the Minneapolis bridge had been classified as 'structurally deficient' since 1991, or that there are many, many, many other bridges in the same deficient category all across the country, and have been for a long, long, long time. That stuff is politically inconvenient.
But you see, none of that matters now, because thar's a new sheriff in town. We elected new Democratic congressional leadership in 2006. They are LARGE AND IN CHARGE, and they had a spiffy new 100 day plan too (nearly the entire plan failed, but heck, at least they HAD one. That alone was a step forward, if only in a figurative sense). Anyway, now we have the good guys in government, the Democrats, and last week they passed the transportation bill, yippee, which………, CONTAINED 8 BILLION DOLLARS OF TOTAL EARMARKS, 2 BILLION DOLLARS OF NEW EARMARKS, AND ONLY 1 BILLION DOLLARS FOR BRIDGES. Read about it in this USA Today article. It's a pork-packed bill full of non-essential political pandering.
Now, I know it was a whole six weeks between the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the Senate passing that transportation bill, but I have to assume even politicians can't forget their promises THAT quickly.
It couldn't be that the Minneapolis bridge collapse was just used as political fodder for partisan purposes by politicians in order to garner votes and raise money, could it ? Naw, that can't be it. Politicians lie ? Especially Democrats ? Perish the thought. Let's call Moveon.org asap. Somehow, I bet Bush and those nasty neocons made them do it…Somehow.
September 25th, 2007 at 11:47 am
How refreshing to learn that a bill with $1 billion of money for improvements only contains $8 billion for earmarks for important things like bike trails and museums that will charge admission for admittance, once we build them for a state.
l picked two statements from the USA Today article about Tom Coburn, one of my favorite politicians, that I thought worked quite well to answer all this problem. They are:
***Coburn and a handful of other lawmakers routinely try to strip bills of earmarks, only to see colleagues crush them with bipartisan efficiency.
On Tuesday, Coburn offered an amendment prohibiting spending on earmarks until every structurally deficient bridge was fixed. It lost, 82 to 14.***
I think I see many Republicans voting with the Democrats in this vote for the earmark program. I guess the Senators need to keep John Murtha a relevant part of the House of Representatives.
September 25th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
In a bit of related good news/bad news/worse news, the bridge to nowhere has been scrapped (the good news), but Alaska is still getting that money for unspecified other projects (the bad news). Senator Stevens, who promised to resign if the bridge to nowhere was cancelled, didn't resign. The porker is still there (the worse news).
Coburn is a good man who tries to eliminate the pork handouts, but he is sure fighting an uphill battle against the majority of our porky congressional pigs.