Laissez-faire

“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river”

– Nikita Khrushchev

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I-35 is a couple hundred yards from near where I live (we can hear the traffic in the evening) and the I-35W bridge is a mere 25 miles directly north. It is right next to the U of MN that I attended in the 1970’s. I’ve been on that bridge probably dozens of times in my life (though not recently). My two nieces, however, were on that bridge the day before it collapsed. So like everyone I’ve gone through some “what if” thoughts.

And like so many others, what irks me is how quickly politics have entered the discussion. The recovered bodies are not yet cold and more are expected to be found, but the “blame game” has already begun.

Nick Coleman, a local, far-left columnist is lamenting the need for more taxes in MN so that we don’t have to “govern on the cheap.”
http://www.startribune.com/10204/story/1339911.html

A little clarification is in order and Neal Boortz does it brilliantly at: http://boortz.com/nuze/200708/08032007.html (half way down).

The State of MN currently has a $2.1 Billion budget surplus. Surpluses come from over, not under taxation (I’m aware that this is a difficult concept for liberals to understand). The problem is clearly not lack of money; it’s where the money is going. And as Neal points out, the Citizens for Government Waste’s “The Pig Booklet” for the state of Minnesota clarifies that:

http://www.taxpayersleague.org/pdf/2006PigletBook.pdf

So before we pick the MN Taxpayer’s pocket again (on top of the obscenity of a $2.1 Billion surplus), how about we scrutinize where our hard-earned $$$ is going and doing a little bit of (gasp) setting priorities. What a concept.

And at the federal level, and despite more liberal nonsense to the contrary, the taxpayers have been more than generous funding bridges and roads. Unfortunately, way too much of the $$$ in “transportation” bills gets earmarked (by both parties) for sexy pork projects instead of going to boring bridges and roads. The Wall Street Journal lays it out quite well at:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110010425

So likewise, before we take the federal taxpayers to the cleaners (again), how about a bipartisan pledge to end all spending
earmarks on federal highway bills ???? Any chance of that ?????

And how about putting off the “blame game” entirely until we recover and bury our dead and get all the facts in? Is that too much to ask ??

– Smitty, 8-5-07

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 9:48 am and is filed under In the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.