It's not only "roads and bridges".
Water municipalities are dealing with horribly outdated water and sewer lines. More jobs.
yes, when you realize how much money Bush has blown in Iraq, and how much need there is at home - New Orleans comes to mind, the foulness of this Administration comes into full view. However, with the complete incompetence Bush and his jokers have shown, even if we magically erased the Iraq mess and gave Bush the 144 Billion a year, I don't think we'd see any improvements.
Posted by T2 at August 3, 2007 12:47 PMHow many earmarks have taken money away from items like this bridge. The bridge to nowhere comes to mind. Shouldn't all this earmark money go to these things? 150 million to Murtha's friends alone. Great reform yesterday, I expect Stevens will get his bridge much sooner than Minnesota. While you're pulling th 2004 bill out, go look at the 2005 one, or the 2006 one. Maybe we ought to look at the 1991 one too. That was when this bridge first became a problem. Then let's look at all those others in the 90's. This bridge was a problem for quite a while. Where were the funds in the 90's? We had a surplus then and just let this bridge sit there.
Posted by peter at August 3, 2007 01:03 PM
Awl hail George Bush, killing americans here at home so he doesn't have to overseas.
Typical of the Rethug way of thinking: spend it overseas so we don't have to spend it here at home.
Hey GOPpers -- enjoying those tax cuts? Hope you do, since every dollar you got was stolen from a middle-class and poor American, and your yachts and country club dues are being financed on the dead bodies of those who floated dead in NOLA and are still being recovered in MN.
Posted by dejah thoris at August 3, 2007 01:05 PM1991, huh Peter....There was another Bush president then, wasn't there when "the bridge first became a problem". You trolls are all the same...its never your Party's fault - aways someone else's. Lets just look at our government since 1980. That would be 20 years of Republican presidents and 8 years of a Dem.
Posted by T2 at August 3, 2007 01:40 PMAnother Democratic Congress, they appropriate the funds. Thank you Democrats for funding our war in Iraq!
Lets look at what Zogby put out this week. Congress handling of the war 3, THREE!
President's handling of the war 24. Eight times better than Congress.
Worst Congress ever!!!!
Think the people are going to return this Congress to their jobs after firing the last one at a 23. I'm thinking not, the people will reverse what they did in 2006. They will recognize it as a mistake and correct it. Democrats, sure we need them, just not in the majority.
Posted by peter at August 3, 2007 02:06 PMpeter, you are an idiot. Why do you, and the other trolls, even bother? Have you seen a psychiatrist lately? Apparently not.
Posted by tempus at August 3, 2007 02:14 PMWe beat down Communism and we're beating down terrorism. The Dems couldn't handle Somolia, too busy with "don't ask don't tell", and faught the Yugo's from 40,000 feet.
Posted by peter at August 3, 2007 02:27 PMpeter, "Clown suit", still intact I see.
The Dems will win an even larger majority next year, don't forget it. And the Presidency! The public knows it is Senate republi-cons causing the obstructionism.
Talk to us next year about the vote. The repukes will still be the minority, (by then, maybe 37 votes in the Senate). And we can finally take back our country from neo-con ass clowns like you!
Posted by Seven of Six at August 3, 2007 03:11 PMfaught? Do you mean fought? My Gawd, you trolls are pathetic...Again, why do you bother? Stay on your Powerline sites, listening to Rush, and stay off this one.
Posted by tempus at August 3, 2007 03:13 PMPeter, who was it who demanded that Clinton withdraw from Somalia? The GOP Senate - by attaching language to the defense budget.
Try again.
Posted by Steve Soto at August 3, 2007 03:27 PMThe worthless lying Bush crime family couldn't protect us from a ripple in a wading pool...
They couldn't be bothered to mount any defense against hijacked airliners after repeated warnings in August 2001. They just put themselves on snooze control, while Bushy went to do some heavy brush cutting at his toy ranchette in Crawford, Texas.
The Bush flooding of New Orleans during and aftert hurricane Katrina was a direct result of the Bush Admin. cutting back levee strengthening funds for several years before...
Minneapolis bridge collapse? The Bush regime is still on snooze, then deny responsibility mode...
The Bush gangsters are only interested in torturing and murdering Iraqis and Afghanis, nothing else matters except their illegal spying on Democrats and anti-war protesters...
Posted by james k. sayre at August 3, 2007 03:33 PMPeter your nose is bleeding...lol
Posted by Goyo at August 3, 2007 03:45 PMHow simple is your world that President Bush -- and I am no great fan -- is responsible for every and all tragedies.
Posted by And Bagely Was A Friend Of Mine at August 3, 2007 04:47 PMActually, Bush is totally irresponsible. Try contacting the OVP, Herr Cheney. He'll just give you ridiculous sneer of his, though.
Posted by tempus at August 3, 2007 04:56 PMThis thread exemplifies why this country is in such a mess. We never get beyond finger-pointing and being honest. Public works and infrastructure building and maintainance is socialistic. The Democrats can't say that word and try to hide the fact in the Democratic policies that prevailed from FDR through the late sixties. The GOP has only one mantra -- No Taxes solve everything and will never take responsiblity for all the horrors that have befallen this country since they took power in 1981. Carter ran in 1980 on the necessity for this country to reininvest in our infrastructure that was obviously beginning to crumble at that time. The country preferred to buy more weapons and go into debt which retroactively was credited with having destroyed the USSR even though it crumbled from within and didn't bother to even try to match Reagan's spending on more weapons. No national Democratic figure since then has ever revisited Carter's critique (because it was an electoral loser) much less attempted to make and sell the case for it.
Posted by Marie at August 3, 2007 05:00 PM
We think our infrastructure is bad...
Water taps run dry in Baghdad.
Bush is batting 1/1000th
Posted by dishwashing engineer at August 3, 2007 06:40 PMU.S. President George Bush signed a $286.4 billion six-year transportation reauthorization bill Aug. 10, 2005 that covers federal fiscal years 2004-09.
Although the details of the reauthorization package are still being reviewed, Minnesota state and local governments can expect to receive about $3.5 billion in federal transportation funding through 2009, an increase of about 46 percent (or about $1.1 billion) over the previous six-year bill.
Posted by peter at August 3, 2007 07:39 PMDorgan said there was enough money in the agency's budget to pay for construction work on the underside of the bridge. But he and Gov. Tim Pawlenty acknowledged that transportation officials will face tough questions about the state's upkeep of the bridge, which has had known deficiencies since 1990.
"We will absolutely get to the bottom of this," Pawlenty said. "There were a lot of decisions made, a lot of judgment calls made, and they're all going to have to be critically reviewed."
Pawlenty said an independent consultant will be hired to scrutinize MnDOT inspection practices meant to safeguard the state's 13,026 bridges. In the case of the I-35W bridge, MnDOT inspections convinced officials that the bridge wouldn't need to be replaced or overhauled until 2020, the governor said.
http://www.startribune.com/10204/story/1339411.html
NEWS FLASH:
Republican policies get Americans killed.
Posted by The Oracle at August 3, 2007 08:36 PMThe economic destruction created by the Bush administration since 2000 is unprecendented.
The United States is on its way to becoming a third world country run by dictator.
The economic destruction created by the Bush administration since 2000 is unprecendented.
The United States is on its way to becoming a third world country run by a dictator.
People are going to put the Republicans back in control of congress. LOL
Boy, you're smokin' da good stuff right now.
The Republican Party campaign at all levels of government for long years attacking raising taxes and funding social programs is at the heart of the deterioration of our infrastructure. Many Democrats went along, realizing full well that they would be voted out of office if they didn't. The Republicans are full of it. But they have been persistent, consistent and thus convincing." If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."- Adolf Hitler. Those who have taken control of the Republican Party have consistently applied the written lessons and careful instructions of Mussolini and Hitler who believed in the merging of government power with corporate power.
Posted by Pat Williams at August 4, 2007 09:58 AMOn the House floor Friday, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., accused MnDOT of turning down an opportunity to use a $200,000 high-tech inspection technology on the bridge that might have detected a fatal flaw. ...
"Technology can discover microscopic cracks not visible to the naked eye and then measure their propagation and do the same with bridges," he said on the House floor. "The Minnesota Department of Transportation was offered the opportunity to use that technology and I am disappointed that the state rejected the opportunity to use that technology to test the structural integrity of the bridge that collapsed." ...
John Schadl, Oberstar's spokesman, said the congressman mentioned the incident because he is frustrated by the lack of investment in new technologies, at both the federal and state levels. But Oberstar does not know whether the company's system would have detected any fatal flaws in the bridge.
"Nobody knows if this technology would have prevented this tragedy," Schadl said
The nutroots are barking up the wrong tree again. Must feel guilty or something and need to justify themselves again. The old point one finger at someone else while three fingers are pointing back at ya.
Posted by peter at August 4, 2007 10:04 AMpeter, give it up, and go home. Your comments are idiotic. Why don't you stick to your winger sites?
Posted by tempus at August 4, 2007 10:45 AMGeorge Bush (and the corporatists) are killing highway repairs in certain areas until they can get their crony buddies in the mix. However, there ARE areas that are getting highway repairs, like here in Oregon and on the west coast, as well as the midwest. Why? Continuous North-South freeway access for the proposed North American Union. Wonder about the fracas over letting Mexican trucks in? This is the start. Areas outside of major cities and large agribusiness concentrations will have to compete for the crumbs that are left....and wither on the vine.
Posted by Michael Anderson at August 4, 2007 01:33 PMWhy with all the handwringing and slobbering on the Mainstream S-stream does NO ONE mention that 40 YEARS of "NO TAXES" and Grover Nutcase and "Pappy" READMYLIPS has brought us EXACTLY what we deserve by allowing these crooks liars and thieves to steal the money, give it to friends and invest in in third-world shithole operations...so they can sit at a Republican fundraiser and say "No, I don't know how much money I have....I just know I don't pay ANY taxes on it"! We are LOSING our country to a bunch of knuckle-dragging throwbacks!!!Wake-up!!!
Posted by George in PA at August 4, 2007 04:25 PMCollapsing bridges in Mississippi, exploding manhole covers in NY, no money for infrastructure, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and end this madness.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov't and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)