Having aired a fairly hard-left opinion re infrastructure decline in this space last week, here's a column from the right side (though not hard right) via gmtoday.com:
Who’s to blame for bridge collapse?
More taxes won’t span the gap in nation’s infrastructure
By JAMES WIGDERSONAugust 8, 2007
Upon hearing the news of a fatal bridge collapse in Minnesota, Marquette law professor Rick Esenberg turned to his wife and said, mocking the left, "It’s Bush’s fault." Unfortunately for Esenberg, the accident was too big to just blame the president. They want to blame the bridge’s collapse on the lack of taxes, a claim without foundation.
The day after the bridge fell, former Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Jim Klobuchar mocked conservatives on his Web site,
"Especially don’t raise the taxes on hedge fund executives and don’t tax the estates of millionaires, don’t close the earmarks and don’t close the tax shelters in the Caribbean that skim billions of dollars from a public treasury that just might have produced enough money to replace a relic bridge before it shuddered and slid into the water."
Klobuchar’s formula for taxing the rich is actually a more specific set of policy preferences than what former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin wrote,
"This is not going to be the last word on bridges, infrastructure, the Minnesota I-35W bridge collapse and the Republican treason and conspiracy to weaken this nation which, unfortunately, includes too many Democratic fellowtravelers. They managed to do what Soviet communism could never do: weaken the infrastructure of this nation and in turn, erode domestic defense and undermine our economy.
"We must be vigilant. Newt Gingrich lead the assault on our nation from Washington 13 years ago, and George W. Bush and his cronies carry on the erosive legacy today. Now there are conspirators and fellow-travelers in the Wisconsin Legislature committed to do the same – destroy our roads and schoolhouses. They are bent upon destroying us from within."
I’m sure that many Americans who wonder why so much of their earnings goes to the federal government would be stunned to hear themselves called "fellow-travelers" to treason. It’s worth noting that at the time the federal highway system was proposed, the marginal federal tax rate for the median family was 20 percent whereas by 2003, the marginal federal tax rate for the median family was 30 percent.
What these writers tend to forget, willingly or otherwise, is that bridges rarely collapse as the result of the passage of a single budget bill. The I-35W bridge over the Mississippi was declared "structurally deficient" in 1990. Two others served as president before the current office holder, one of them for eight years. President Clinton, when he was candidate Clinton in 1992, actually campaigned in part on stimulating the economy by "rebuilding America’s infrastructure." Despite the largest tax increase in American history and a growth in spending, Clinton’s eight years in office did not repair the I-35W bridge.
Meanwhile, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is under pressure to sign a transportation bill that will raise gas taxes in his state, even though it is unlikely that either of the two previously proposed gas tax hikes he vetoed would have prevented the accident.
The New York Times notes that transportation spending nationally is at an all-time high. Unfortunately, infrastructure maintenance is not the glamorous type of government spending politicians like to engage in. Politicians like to build new things that they can put their names on.
Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd is the classic example of this with no less than the Robert C. Byrd Drive, the Robert C. Byrd Highway, Robert C. Byrd Bridge, Robert C. Byrd Freeway and the Robert C. Byrd Expressway all named after him.
Minnesota Public Radio reports replacing the bridge will cost between $300 million and $400 million. Congress is already pitching in $250 million.
Perhaps Wisconsin could do our part to pitch in. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett cannot agree on what to do with nearly $92 million in federal transportation aid. The aid must be used for "new" forms of transportation, so the mayor has proposed a streetcar that goes in circles downtown and the county executive has proposed adding some county bus routes.
How about giving the money back to improve the country’s infrastructure by rebuilding a bridge that carried 140,000 vehicles daily, serving far more people than either the Walker or the Barrett plans?
(James Wigderson is a blogger publishing at http://wigdersonlibrarypub.blogspot.com and a Waukesha resident. His column runs Thursdays in The Freeman.)
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