Crossing that bridge when we get to it

August 7, 2007

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) has been a favorite of the Grover Norquist crowd for quite a while, in part because of his fealty to the far-right agenda on taxes and spending. But once in a while, reality gets in the way of conservative talking points.

In the past two years, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state’s gas tax to pay for transportation needs.

Now, with at least five people dead in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge here, Mr. Pawlenty, a Republican, appears to have had a change of heart.

“He’s open to that,” Brian McClung, a spokesman for the governor, said Monday of a higher gas tax. “He believes we need to do everything we can to address this situation and the extraordinary costs.”

Better late than never, I suppose.

Part of the problem is politicians like Pawlenty who put opposition to tax increases over infrastructure needs, but the other part is other politicians who want to invest in new transportation projects instead of fixing old ones.

Despite historic highs in transportation spending, the political muscle of lawmakers, rather than dire need, has typically driven where much of the money goes. That has often meant construction of new, politically popular roads and transit projects rather than the mundane work of maintaining the worn-out ones.

Further, transportation and engineering experts said, lawmakers have financed a boom in rail construction that, while politically popular, has resulted in expensive transit systems that are not used by a vast majority of American commuters.

Pols like standing for photo-ops at the groundbreaking for a new transportation project, but investing in an old bridge just isn’t terribly exciting, and lacks a political punch. As a result, existing infrastructure is, and has been, neglected.

Last week, Representative John L. Mica of Florida, the ranking Republican on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, met with advisers to the Bush administration to urge a nationwide plan to address transportation needs. Rebuilding the I-35W bridge would be only “a Band-Aid” Mr. Mica said, “to a much more serious problem.”

“We don’t have any kind of strategic plan to deal with infrastructure, and we’re falling behind,” he said.

If the 35W tragedy helps refocus the political world’s attention a bit, some good may come of this awful accident.

it’s only after a few people have been drowned along with the government in grover norquist’s bathtub, do republicans begin to see a need for government.

of course that’s hypocritical of them. you’d think they’d just say the death of some liberals is worth the larger philosophical savings of small government.

  • To be fair, it is impossible to know whether or not the bills that he vetoed would have prevented the disaster.

    To be honest, it is wrong for people to not spend money on necessary things like bridge safety because they belong to the ‘reduce my tax bill’ religion.

    It would be nice if liberals and conservatives would spend money on necessary things and not waste money. Then the two sides could have a debate over what is necessary and what is not.

    Right now, you have a huge portion of Republicans who think that any government spending, (outside of Iraq), is bad. It is not possible to have any kind of reasonable debate with anyone who thinks that all government spending is bad.

    It is a pity that people have to die for a political point of view.

  • “Right now, you have a huge portion of Republicans who think that any government spending, (outside of Iraq), is bad.”

    Except for their beloved earmarks!

  • Further, transportation and engineering experts said, lawmakers have financed a boom in rail construction that, while politically popular, has resulted in expensive transit systems that are not used by a vast majority of American commuters.

    While a commuter train in Minnesota may “not used by a vast majority of American commuters,” commuter rail is still a good idea if we want to make transportation cheaper and safer in this country. To put a micro-focus on 12 million little dollars in one state does disservice to the big picture.

    Just because a car bridge collapses doesn’t mean we should kick rail in the teeth. If more people took trains instead of drove, it would ease the strain on roads and bridges.

  • Haik beat me to it. The subsidized rails are not used, in part, because there are lots
    more subsidized roads (not to mention oil and autos). What is needed is a thought out
    and useful transportation *system*. That, of course, sounds too Soviet to ever pass in
    this country, so we just have to put up with the occasional bridge collapse and train
    derailment to go along with the daily traffic jams.

  • A few points about Minnesota’s recent transportation history to keep in mind here:

    1. The freeway system in the Twin Cities area was completed by the mid-1980s, and since then almost a million people have moved to the area and traffic congestion is a growing problem. So there is a need for at least some “ribbon cutting” projects to deal with growth in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro.

    2. The state of Minnesota last raised it’s gas tax in 1988, and what was worth 20 cents a gallon then is now worth 13 cents today. Increases in property taxes have been making up for this in part, but it’s not enough to fund both needed improvement due to growth and keep pace with necessary maintanced on aging roads and bridges. So the state under Gov. Pawlenty has been bonding transportation projects – which is borrowing that will have to be paid out of future state revenues. That’s why the Governor’s “no tax” pledge has been controversial, at least when it comes to fuel taxes.

    3. State spending on passenger rail in the state is not why there isn’t enough money elsewhere for other transportation needs, as most of that money has come from federal sources. There’s a lot of local history that the likes of the Cato Institute and the Club for Growth are ignoring in order to make their ideological points, and citizens are being disserved by such spin.

  • Do they ever have a plan? I mean, seriously. It’s always about putting out the fires as they break out, not about preventing them in the first place.

    Everyone wants to travel on good and safe roads – everyone. And there could not possibly ever be enough money to keep all the roads in good condition all the time; it’s a constant battle. In states where winter weather is a factor, the chemicals they pour on the roads contribute to their deterioration, but God forbid the state highways crews are not Johnny-on-the-spot, dumping salt so that not one single person has to wait a minute to get to work or school or shopping. Where I live, it is not unusual to see trucks out dumping stuff on the roads before the first flake can be seen falling from the sky. If it doesn’t snow or sleet, they get blasted for wasting money; if they don’t get ahead of the precipitation, they get blasted for making our lives more difficult.

    I think people have to decide what it is they want, with the knowledge that having it all comes with a price tag – there simply is no way to have safe roads and bridges, safe food and drugs, safe consumer goods and cars and every other damn thing we want without paying for it.

    But no one seems to want to pay to protect themselves or their families from the possibility that they will be on the bridge when it fails, or they will be on the road when the sinkhole opens up, or they will take the drug that causes heart attacks, or they will eat the e. coli-contaminated spinach, or they will buy the car with the engine that spntaneously ignites. They would rather play the odds, and tell themselves these things will always happen to other people.

  • If the 35W tragedy helps refocus the political world’s attention a bit,….

    It won’t. Americans are incapable of focusing their attention for any length of time. TeeVee has conditioned us. Now, where’s that remote?

  • Maryland is building a 5 billion dollar 18-mile toll road called the InterCounty Connector. (ICC) championed by Republican ex-Governor Bob Ehrlich.

    The budget is 1.2 billion in the hole.

    What is Democratic governor Martin O’Malley doing?
    Supporting this new road because it’s backed by state lawmakers who were given massive campaign contributions by the land developers that own land along its route. They’ll be allowed to convert the zoning to commerical and make a tidy sum.

    Meanwhile, cars are stuck at traffic intersections that are far beyond their intended capacity. 5 billion would fund construction of overpasses for at least 80 of these intersections. We don’t even HAVE that many that need it!

    There are also two mass transit rail lines sure to be sunk by this 5 billion dollar shafting of the public. The developer money is used to send out propaganda that makes wildly unrealistic promises, lowballs the cost, and doesn’t mention the tolls to be charged at all.

    For the love of all that’s holy, people… don’t just vote for the people that make nice promises and sound good on a microphone. Vote for the stumbling, uncomfortable guy you never heard of who tells the truth if only you take the time to ask.

  • I am tired of ‘tax’ being equated with ‘bad.’

    Some of us recognize and realize–and as a result, are happy to pay them–that taxes pay for not only our infrastructure, but our first responders (police, firefighers, EMS), military (to some extent), health care for indigents, and a host of other things. All of which equates to a general standard of living that is quite good, and which seeks to help people who cannot help themselves. That last part is what gets at Republicans in general and the Norquists of the world in particular–helping people. They believe that one must ‘pull up one’s own bootstraps,’ which is largely a positive mantra–but the fact remains that not everyone can. We pay taxes because we believe that in doing so our country is made better, through public works, and through helping others in need.

    Isn’t that what their bible says to do, after all?

  • I think people have to decide what it is they want, with the knowledge that having it all comes with a price tag – there simply is no way to have safe roads and bridges, safe food and drugs, safe consumer goods and cars and every other damn thing we want without paying for it.

    Anne, you have just summarized in a few short lines the entire problem with America. It is fun and popular around here to blame the Republican’ts (and I have to admit, its one of my favorite pasttimes). But we allegedly have an educated country. Some majority elected these cretins. Here where I live, we just had an out-and-out tax revolt on a plan to share the cost of regional quality of life attractions (currently everyone enjoys but all of the burden in on the central city). The rhetoric of the anti-taxers — grassroots, not Rethug led (because the business community who needs to attract workforce backed the tax) — was the most selfish, simpleminded, stubborn I’ve ever heard.

    Somewhere in the Reagan 80s, we lost all sense of community and broader purpose. People actually bought into the Laffer Curve – not because it makes the first bit of sense, but because its what they want to hear. Like cold fusion, miracle weight loss “drugs,” and perpetual motion machines, the Laffer Curve promises us something for nothing – growth to fund things we want without cost (better still, we get to lower our taxes and still somehow spend more!) Intuitively, we’ve known since childhood that there is no free lunch, you can’t get something for nothing, and if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Still, a majority of citizens in this country so selfishly want to believe that they bought into what Bush Pere correctly called “voodoo economics.” That belief sadly still shapes our politics and policies today.

    It is hard to blame politicians of any stripe for pandering when it is what a majority of the voters demand. At the convention, Mondale said we would have to raise taxes. Rather than being praised for his candor, he lost 10 points in the polls within a week. Politicans are punished for cutting services and programs and for government failures; they are punished for raising taxes; they are punished for running deficits (sadly, they are punished least for the latter). It is a lose-lose-lose for the politician, who presumably knows the equation doesn’t add up but doesn’t dare tell the emporer’s constituents that it is they who have no clothes.

    Toward the end of my time actively working in politics, I was asked to run for office. I declined because I knew I couldn’t lie (or even humor) the inevitable crowds who would demand I tell them 2+2=5 as a precondition for their vote. I blame Reagan and his cronies in part for encouraging this nonsense more than any other group of “leaders” in history, but in the end the selfishness behind it is no fault but the peoples. We get the government we deserve – and the more I write this, the more I am curious how all of the “everyone should be able to vote” folks from last week’s thread can really believe that. “Everyone” is delusional. “Everyone” has made this mess. “Everyone” is too selfish and shortsighted to be a functional body politic. Until “everyone” admits that you can’t have free roads, free social security, free hurricane relief, and free police protection and that the opposite of “free” in this context is “taxes,” I have no use for “everyone’s” participation in the process. It will only hasten our handbasket ride to hell.

    (Ok, so I’m still grumpy this morning. I’ll try again after my coffee hits.)

  • Rail spending is not a problem here in MN. We have one fricking rail line that goes from a mall to the middle of downtown. It does not even serve the majority of comuters buty it is a start. For the record Gov. Paw-Lenty was in the State legislature before becoming “Little W” and hates light rail! He and the Norquist lovers called installing public transit (and carpool lanes for that matter) social engineering. Apparently building an 8 lane road to everywhere does not influence people to drive cars.

    As I posted a few days ago, Minnesota under Pawlenty has been actively trying to move to the middle. Not the middle of the political spectrum but the middle of every state ranking on every issue. The trade off for falling out of the top 10 in taxes (highest) has been falling out of the top 10 in education, transportation, polution, etc. etc.

    The DFL needs to hang this issue around every taxes & government = bad Republicanist in the State. At teh end of the day I have faith that pragmatism will win out over saving a few $ on taxes. If not then I just hope I am not on the road when the next bridge comes down.

  • “I think people have to decide what it is they want, with the knowledge that having it all comes with a price tag – there simply is no way to have safe roads and bridges, safe food and drugs, safe consumer goods and cars and every other damn thing we want without paying for it.”

    Either Fair Tax and Spend Wisely Dems, or Cut Tax and Increase Disasters Republicans. That is the choice.

    This all did start back in Reagan’s day, with Grover Norquist leading the way. The anti-tax blackmailers have been kowtowing politicians of both parties for over two decades now, and the results of their policies are pretty clear, sometimes violently and strikingly deadly as in the case of the bridge collapse (although usually the results are just more ordinary–pisspoor roads, far out of date energy grid, contaminated water systems, food contamination scares, lax security, etc. which can cause death but not necessarily in a violent manner). It’s not just vetoes on gas taxes, but the overall effect of what these clowns have done to affect policy and discussion on all sorts of different government revenue sources over many, many years and across the country.

  • Raising taxes for roads and bridges (new or repairs) is a slap in the face for the taxophobic right-wingers. Here’s another smack to the head for the right-wingers: How is all of this “infrastructure” going to get done without lots of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America? (Wasn’t the transcontinental railroad built in the 19th century with lots of Irish and Chinese labor?)

  • Let’s face it. The new road constructions and rail systems that are not fully utilized became so popular because of the f__king lobbyists. Property owners or realtors pay a lobbyist to bribe and connive a congressman to build something to enhance the value of just their property (and Billary insists she will still take Washington lobbyist’s money). While on the topic of roads and infrastructure, why is it that roads in some countries in Europe are required to last 7 years before needing repairs while 3 years is satisfactory here. If the European road needs repairs before the 7 years is up, the contractor that built or repaired the road has to do it without receiving additional funds.

  • terraformer: …and through helping others in need.

    Isn’t that what their bible says to do, after all?

    SNARK=ON
    Perhaps, but not nearly as much as it condemns pacifists, taxation, abortion, gays, liberals and Communists.
    SNARK=OFF

  • Funny how we get a bridge to nowhere, lavishly earmarked to serve a tiny number of Ted Stevens Alaskan constituents, while a bridge to somewhere serving an enormously greater number of people collapses from lack of maintenance. It appears safety for Americans is only a concern when we can go to war but the safety provided while we are just commuting to work is deemed trivial by comparison.

  • zeitgeist***What you say on the whole is true but I and many of my friends believe taxes are necessary to build and maintain our infrastructure and always have. We use to laugh and say big deal it’s just another 2cents on the dollar and this is how we can get our 2cents in. In fact I’m all for a 1 cent tax on our utility bills to be given away in a monthly drawing. The people I’ve noticed who complain the most about taxes are the greediest who wouldn’t support anything that did not have a direct benefit to them.

    My fear is the profiteering that takes place with our tax dollars. The waste of the tax dollar to benefit cronies and overpriced products and services from “special” contractors has soared to new heights since Reagan. Billions are lost yearly to fraud, corruption and bureaucratic interference. I’m sorry but in most cases some republican has figured out a way to make a big buck off of a proposed government project and that determines what projects pass. Government profiteering is what drives our current republican party. Democrats have consistently shown some integrity for government performance and efficiency. Republicans consistently use government to enrich themselves and their friends at the cost of government efficiency.

    I support whatever taxes are necessary to to build and maintain our nation’s infrastructure and social programs and believe most of the tax burden should come from the richest 1% of our citizens(most people do not realize how many billions that would account for each year) but I also believe our taxes should be administered by those who believe in utilizing the efficiency of government not those who want to prove government is inefficient and doesn’t work and want to figure a way to funnel our tax dollars to their corporate buddies.

    “Responsibility” is not lost in America, it is simply ignored by those who feel the most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.

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