A Bridge Too Far
by The Panda Man · 08/03/2007 4:15 pmThe
We spend billions in
Iraq while we fall apart at home.We have been warned by engineers that our nation’s infrastructure is in dire need of repair and upgrade.
Who needs terrorism when the inept GOP runs our nation into the ground. The “terrorists” can just sit back and watch as our nation falls apart.
Mission Accomplished.god forbid we let a little infrastructure needs get in the way of a tax cut!
All of this, of course, means we need massive tax increases to pay for inspections and repairs, but not a re-ordering of government spending priorities to properly handle the trillions of dollars they already take from us. Interestingly, one of the
And if you live here [Minnesota] You’d know that this state just spent three quarters of a billion - that’s billion with a big, f—–’ B - dollars on a light rail whose riders are still heavily subsidized by state and local taxes.
Coincidentally, here in
The truth is that government bureaucracy and incompetence transcend party lines, which is one of the main reasons why I am a conservative. Government generally gets worse the bigger and more removed from the governed it becomes, no matter who is running it. It is simply the nature of the beast, which is why good government to me is generally less government. Instead of attempting to do everything for everyone and achieving mediocrity, we would be better served by government that did fewer things but did them well.
Our strident liberal friends, of course, hold the opposite view. When government does something poorly, slowly, or inefficiently, as it usually does, their response is to give government more to do and more of your money with which to do it. Blaming Republicans is simply a convenient vehicle for achieving that goal.
Sadly, this same tune is being played yet again in Minnesota, this time before the rubble of that tragic bridge even had time to settle. When the desire for the acquisition of power is so great that the cries of our fellow citizens in distress are obscured by shouts of political opportunism, there is something seriously wrong in the land.
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Can I sit back and let the gubminet do everything for me and blame them on everything that goes wrong ?
Welfare, medical, food, clothes I mean do everything for me so I can sit around and blame blame blame.
Oh and lower my taxes while we are at it
sorry dov you can’t have your cake and eat it as well…
I just realized something.
In real life, gregg is actually a Kos Kid commenter.
Lotro
I don’t know why not. Katrina evacs get it. I think a lot of libs at least try to get it.
Raise your taxes, and yours and yours. However leave me so many loopholes that I can go untouched, get grants, loans take political “gifts” especially like Jefferson.
I can dream can’t I ?
They will use this as a reason to increase the tax on gasoline and registration fees in order to repair our roads.
Minnesota had a budget surplus and so does Texas….. We have one bridge in Texas rated like that one. Wanna bet repair starts next week?
Question - if the cause were determined to have something to do with leaking stray current from their toy train and the related electrolosis, what would be the odds of the truth even coming out before Hermann Hospital, or the Pierce elevated falls down? Or even after that?
Stop tax cuts to protect public safety? Come on up here to Boston and take a good look at what out of control spending gets ya on the big dig. It is not quite finished yet, although ten years behind schedule and costing fifteen billion dollars, not the 2.8 billion orginally estimated. In inflation adjusted dollars that is a little of three miles of tunnel and TWICE the price we paid to construct the Panama Canal. Such a bargin, we have had arrests, conviction for fraud, scandals enough for all and sadly deaths too.
It is your choice to either remain silent and accept the government we have created or take action and start correcting the problems.
They are betting you will whine and complain but in the end do nothing.
Building a one billion dollar stadium while the bridges fall apart.
I heard on Mike Gallegher this morning playing a clip from Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar stating that this is GWB’s fault. Iraq war and Katrina refugees were in her speech as well. SHE is NOT at fault, but GWB is. Reminds me of the elected officials of La./spittles
Could be worse… We could have spent Trillions of dollars on a war on poverty…
Really really sad. Can anybody put up the figures on transportation infrastructure spending in 2002 versus 2006? I want to see if there really is a connection that could be made to spending on the war. I seriously doubt that anybody can make such a connection, because I doubt that the transportation infrastructure spending dropped at all. However, I welcome somebody to prove me wrong.
How about the gazillion $$ bridge to nowhere Alaska wanted to build? Couldn’t the elected Senator of Minnesota bring up such a bill as well for HER state? BTW: looked her up. She is a Democrat, so you cannot blame her. It’s GWB’s fault. Oh yeah, my A/C compressor went out yesterday. A bill I wasn’t expecting. It’s GWB’s fault.
The amount spent on the war, the space program, or other expenditure should have nothing to do with it. We pay gas taxes, vehicle registration fees, sales taxes on vehicle sales and resale’s, tolls, etc. etc. Those amounts are supposed to be used for road maintenance and improvements. The problem is they use that money for purposes it was never intended for.
I believe we pay .20 per gallon tax on gas in Texas and part of it goes for bilingual education, why? I drive about 200 miles per day around Harris county, I pay a lot of gas taxes, toll fees, and parking fees into the meters downtown. It is a political shell game with our money
Have you driven down Kirby south of 59? It has been a pot hole filled road for years and they have never fix it.
Bush hates Yankees!
#15, of course he does, you know he is a Rangers fan.
On the issue of Houston streets, didn’t this mayor promise to get Houston “moving again”? He may have gotten downtown to be reasonably navigable, but what about the other 99/100ths of the city? Well, let me tell yoi something, bub. My neighborhood in west Houston is, in places, a nightmare. And it’s not because of the I-10 construction. I’m talking about major city streets being closed down to one lane at rush hours on Fridays! I’m sorry, but anybody who writes that schedule is either a sadist or retarded. And I have retarded relatives, and they aren’t that mean. So, I say with confidence: Mayor White is a liar. Let me rephrase that: Mayor White is a damned liar.
Just don’t ask Mrs. G (who spends her whole day in the neighborhood) her view. Well, we couldn’t print it here anyway.
I used to work in the Galleria area. The streets are being maintained by hispanics who I believed were illegals, just like every hispanic who works for the city, county and state roads departments. Inferior and shoddy work, patches of asphalt instead of reconcreting. Look at the 610 and I-10 construction. It is all Hispanics. How many of these do you believe are illegal? You wonder why we have all the shoddy work we have? Look at the roads in Mexico. We are getting the same here. Cities, counties and the state are cashing in on the illegal alien labor. Sanctuary cities — damn right - just figure how many of these illegals are employed by the city, county and state. Wonder why no one wants to shut ‘em down? These people aren’t being employed by restaurants and lawn services. They are being employed by the city, county and state.
The generally misesrable condition of Houston’s streets/roads reminds me how fortunate it was we moved out to rural Richmond 27 years ago. The roads out here are in much better condition despite all the new subdivisions. The downside is too many new people moving in to get away from Houston. It was much nicer when we were out in the sticks. Not any more.
There is plenty of tax dollars to solve our problems if government would quit wasting it on “pork” projects. This over spending applies to both parties, the Republicans and the Dimwits.
Leave it to the Dimwits to use the bridge tragedy to call for an end to the war. So what happens if the Dimwits get their way, we bring the money back here to spend on projects that the terrorists can blow up later.
This topic reminds me of H.I.S.D saying the need a bond issued in order to do mantenance on their school buildings . I’m willing to bet that a LARGE
item / line on their yearly budget reads Maintenance . Where have they been spinding it ?
saying THEY need
#6 American Texas has the most brides rated as the bridge in Minnesota. no one has told us that yet, except for one channel and I forgot which one. This is called truth in government by omission.
#21 when i did some consulting for HISD a few years back the corruption was everywhere and really large at their Mccarty facility.
The corruption involved public accounting firms (auditors) and many employees. Then of course you always have the stupid factor in dealing with HISD.
First of all stadium spending and light rail spending did NOT take any money from road construction. Stadiums were built from taxes that most local houstonians will not pay and the light rail comes from revenue bonds. So stop with the silly strawman argument. No maybe if bush’s pork-filled transportation bill addressed some of these problems…
And I suppose the principal and interest on those bonds are paid with magical METRO fairy dust?
They’re not revenue bonds, as generally understood. They’re not intended to be paid back with MetroRail revenues. To put it another way, MetroRail will not — and was never intended to — pay for itself.
No, these bond payments are paid by sales taxes on retail purchases in the METRO service area — some $450 million in FY 2007 alone.