Bridge collapse: 'Pawlenty needs to pay the piper'
Jim Boyd is one of the dozens of top-flight Star-Tribune editors and writers who have taken contractual buyouts since the paper was taken over by a Wall Street investment firm. He offered this comment by email in response to a blog entry posted by Rick Perlstein here wondering if Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's "no new taxes" pledge might have been at fault.
Jim Boyd: "...[T]his is the theme that will develop over coming days, and needs to. For the first time I regretted not being at work....We said, "Let's not be too quick to blame" here. But poet Rob Swart offers his opinion here, and another former Star-Tribune writer, Jim Klobuchar, doesn't mince words here.
"What needs to be said, in a deft way is this: No matter what the reason THIS bridge collapsed, its failure demonstrates in the most monstrous way just how utterly dependent we are on good infrastructure. We literally put our lives, not to mention our economy, at risk when we fail to take proper care of our highways, roads and bridges.
"All over Minnesota, roads and bridges are in bad shape because this governor and his gang of tax hating knuckle-draggers have been allowed to strangle off the flow of constant funds needed to ensure we can depend on what we build to get us, our families and our goods safely where they need to go.
"I hope the Democrats find someone with a voice who can carefully develop that message and then pound it home, reminding people of the vetoed gas tax increase that reasonable members of the Legislature wanted to enact.
"Pawlenty needs to pay the piper."
Labels: infrastructure, Pawlenty, transportation
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2 Comments:
I can't take it anymore. I am so sick and tired of whiney liberals who try to have it both ways. They ram down our collective throats the term 'transportation' which includes billions of dollars for light rail boondoggles and inner city transit boondoggles then have the effrontery to blame Governor Pawlenty's policy for the collapse of the bridge telling everyone that the bridge collapsed because we didn't pass a gas tax??? B as in B, S as in S.
Well, I've had it and off come the gloves. I'm done playing nice and if holier-than-thou liberals like Boyd who wanna play political hard ball with their government-can-fix-all attitude, they found a willing opponent.
First, the bridge would have collapsed regardless of Pawlenty being in office. The confluence of events was so extraordinary, that no level of funding would have prevented it. The excessive summer heat over the last few weeks causing the collective expansion and contraction of the truss, the pinings sheared off causing the south end of the bridge to come loose from its river pilings. No inspection in the world would have found this and no reasonable analysis that increased taxes would have prevented it. But, Boyd's comments reveal the larger picture - if only there were enough funding, government would be able to solve every problem facing us. B as in B, S as in S...again.
Second, to posit that somehow the 'tax hating knuckle-draggers' are to blame shows a level of virulency that makes me want to puke. VV will begrudgingly publish my benign criticisms even though the publishers may not agree with me, but hate-filled pieces such as this seem to sail right through (no offense to VV). If Democrats weren't out there pushing light rail boondoggles, commuter rail boondoggles, building $8 million dollar bicycle bridges and paying off every public union to get votes, we would have enough money for ROADS AND BRIDGES. Instead, the Democrats push wasting billions of dollars on 'transportation' boondoggles and lobby to have more money siphoned off from ROADS AND BRIDGES. Anyone recall the new 'transportation amendment' to the constitution that will mandate gas tax money, license fee money and other dedicated road funding go to 'transportation'? Gee, which groups were out there pushing the voters to pass that? Why would raising the gas tax do anything for roads and bridges since some, if not all, of that money would be contitutionally mandated to go for non-roads/bridges projects (i.e. transit)?
Haters like Boyd want to have it both ways - raise the gas tax to pay for light rail and 'transit', then blame Pawlenty that there isn't enough money for roads and bridges. What a bunch of political tripe and is yet ANOTHER example of leftist myopia that I have talked about in this forum.
There's plenty of money for ROADS AND BRIDGES if we'd simply prioritize the funding. But, the hypocrites who have been pushing light rail and transit funding disguised as 'transportation' now blame the governor for lack of roads and bridges funding. They hate cars and hate people who drive cars, but then tell us there isn't enough funding for roads and bridges. Their hypocrisy is astounding and their culpability obvious.
I for one have had it with the political oppotunism of the left and the Democrats and I am not going to stand by for one minute and let hate-filled garbage such as this piece go unchallenged. The perverse logic that the governor is responsible for the bridge collapse is absolutely reprehensible and I am ashamed that a responsible member of the media would stoop to such a level.
I'm a structural engineer and I think the problem is most people, including politicians, take for granted our infrastructure. Engineers are not paid well and everyday we lose good talented ones to other professions that pay better.
The real problem here is not the engineering community, it's the total lack of funding to replace the aging bridges, highways, sewer systems and water supply. Until government gets serious about our infrastructure instead of spending money on silly social experiments we'll continue to see more problems.
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