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I agree with you to some extent. Gas taxes need to raised, but not at the Federal level. I personally do not trust the Federal Government to do the right thing with my money; there is so little accountability at the Federal level.
I live in Minneapolis only a couple miles from this bridge, I used to travel it at least a few times a week. My gut reaction tells me that there isn't one thing that anyone can point to regarding the cause of this disaster; in other words, this was the perfect storm with plenty of fault to be shifted around.
Rant On:
Let me preface this by saying that I am intimately involved in state politics with the party that does not like taxes.
In Minnesota we have had transportation funding issues for quite some time; our transportation system used to be the envy of the nation. The funding problems go back a ways, but really began with our previous Governor. You might remember him, he used to be a professional wrestler. The big problems really all began when vehicle registration fees were cut under his tenure, which fund transportation, with not much of a sustainable way to make up the funding shortfall.
Fast forward to the next Governor, who is a good guy, but from the burbs and by default really only cares about NIMBY issues especially taxes. During his first campaign he signed a pledge to not increase any tax even though we were facing a $4 billion defecit. This was at the height of the real estate boom and the Twin Cities were growing rapidally and putting a lot of pressure on our roadways. The result of this pressure and a "no new taxes" pledge led to the bonding not only for road improvements, but road maintenance.
Leap forward to today. Much of our transportation budget is going to soley debt service, this clearly has not been a sustainable practice. During the last legislative session, with a new majority in control, attempts were made to increase the gas tax, and they failed via a veto.
Our Governor, the good guy that he is, I feel is not planning for our future, but rather his own. As the chair of a failing presidential committee, he clearly has his eye on the door. He did recover us from a $4 billion defecit to a $2 billion surplus in four short years, but at a cost. I don't care about public education funding, they receive half of the state's budget and are constantly whining for more. What I do care about are the essential services that are supposed to be provided by the government that are not, couple this with an ever increasing ecnomic clevage between the urban and rural populations - this is not good - because of reductions in Local Government Aid (helps rural areas provide services such as police and fire protection) and you can see that problems will certainly bubble up.
How does this relate to the bridge? The current administration certainly knew the situation wasn't that great, but thought that they could get away with it until the next guy took over. In the mean time, the administration (Governor) looked great due to the huge budget turn around and suppressed burdens on tax payers.
You can not have your cake and eat it too.
Long story short, we need to raise our gas tax, by quite a bit actually; it hasn't been raised since 1988 IIRC. Providing safe and efficient transportation infrastructure is supposed to be one of the primary responsibilities of government and it appears that has failed in this case.
Rant off.
Sorry if this doesn't make any sense, but I've been in the midst of back tredding all day and felt that I had to let off some steam. I know this happens in every corner of the country. This is really a great place to live, politics aside.
posted by 66.41.226...
, Thu, 2 Aug 2007 12:11:09
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