Gutknecht blew it on DM&E financing

JOSEPH A. KUNKEL III

Our representative, Gil Gutknecht, was asleep at the switch and now the DM&E trains are rolling our way.

I don't question Gutknecht's honesty. But he knows well how corrupt the Republican-controlled Congress has become. He should have seen this coming. A former railroad lobbyist-turned Republican senator from South Dakota outsmarted Gutknecht. Senator John Thune snuck $2.5 billion in low-interest public financing for DM&E into a transportation bill to help his former employer.

The fact that the transportation bill was long and complex is no excuse. Our representative is supposed to know what is in the bills on which he is voting. We need a representative attentive enough to protect the interests of our southern Minnesota communities and then we need some real congressional reform.

(More on the DM&E.)