Is This Bridge Worth It?
Stillwater Lift BridgeCourtesy of Star Tribune/Minneapolis-St. Paul — The Stillwater Lift Bridge over the St. Croix River would be replaced by a $700 million freeway-style span.
NYTRepresentative Michele Bachmann, the conservative Republican running for president, has little in common, ideologically, with her fellow Minnesotan, Senator Al Franken, a Democrat.
But when it comes to fighting for federal approval of a big bridge project -- in this case, a $700 million freeway-style span over the St. Croix River between Minnesota and Wisconsin -- they are joined at the hip.
Such a proposal would not normally command national attention, but critics of Ms. Bachmann have seized on it to say that it is hypocritical of her to support such a huge public project in her district while attacking government spending otherwise. The bridge in question would be mostly paid for by the taxpayers of Wisconsin and Minnesota. But it needs a federal exemption from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to get the go-ahead, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, a Minnesotan, and environmentalists have argued that the project would essentially gut the law. They have proposed a scaled-down replacement bridge instead.
Does it make sense to build the bridge as planned?
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1 Comments:
this is hardly a bridge to nowhere and because it spans two states, it is under the purview of Congress. Bachmann has supported such a bridge going back to her days in the state legislature. For all the bridges to nowhere that have been built and all the taxes that people like Charlie Rangel have failed to pay over the last 40 years, this bridge is worth the $700M price tag. Too bad it wasn't built 4 years ago when the price tag was only $500M.
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