Reid: Ready to rebuild that bridge in Minneapolis

So where was Senator Klobucher (D-Minn) BEFORE the bridge collapsed, even though it was ruled by a FEDERAL agency which she presumably oversees to be STRUCTURALLY DEFICIENT. So, Senator, given that Minneapolis is the apex of your state and you occasionally visit there, DID YOU YOURSELF EVER TAKE THE TIME TO REVIEW the reports of the U.S. Department of Transportation? Did you ignore those reports? DID YOU EVEN BOTHER TO READ THEM? If so, WHY DIDN'T YOU PUSH FOR REPLACEMENT BEFORE NOW? Why did not you use one of your precious EARMARKS? Hmmm. Inquiring minds want to know why you DIDN'T DO YOUR JOB!

The death bridge was "structurally deficient," we now learn, and had a rating of just 50 percent, the threshold for replacement. But no one appears to have erred on the side of public safety. The errors were all the other way.

Would you drive your kids or let your spouse drive over a bridge that had a sign saying, "CAUTION: Fifty-Percent Bridge Ahead"?

No, you wouldn't. But there wasn't any warning on the Half Chance Bridge. There was nothing that told you that you might be sitting in your over-heated car, bumper to bumper, on a hot summer day, thinking of dinner with your wife or of going to see the Twins game or taking your kids for a walk to Dairy Queen later when, in a rumble and a roar, the world you knew would pancake into the river.

There isn't any bigger metaphor for a society in trouble then a bridge falling, its concrete lanes pointing brokenly at the sky, its crumpled cars pointing down at the deep waters where people disappeared.

Only this isn't a metaphor.

The focus at the moment is on the lives lost and injured and the heroic efforts of rescuers and first-responders - good Samaritans and uniformed public servants. Minnesotans can be proud of themselves, and of their emergency workers who answered the call. But when you have a tragedy on this scale, it isn't just concrete and steel that has failed us.

So far, we are told that it wasn't terrorists or tornados that brought the bridge down. But those assurances are not reassuring.

They are troubling.

If it wasn't an act of God or the hand of hate, and it proves not to be just a lousy accident - a girder mistakenly cut, a train that hit a support - then we are left to conclude that it was worse than any of those things, because it was more mundane and more insidious: This death and destruction was the result of incompetence or indifference.

In a word, it was avoidable.

That means it should never have happened. And that means that public anger will follow our sorrow as sure as night descended on the missing.

For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It's been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase - the first in 20 years - last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government.

I'm not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It is general.

Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics.

How ironic is it that tonight's scheduled groundbreaking for a new Twins ballpark has been postponed? Even the stadium barkers realize it is in poor taste to celebrate the spending of half a billion on ballparks when your bridges are falling down. Perhaps this is a sign of shame. If so, it is welcome. Shame is overdue.

At the federal level, the parsimony is worse, and so is the negligence. A trillion spent in Iraq, while schools crumble, there aren't enough cops on the street and bridges decay while our leaders cross their fingers and ignore the rising chances of disaster.

And now, one has fallen, to our great sorrow, and people died losing a gamble they didn't even know they had taken. They believed someone was guarding the bridge.

We need a new slogan and we needed it yesterday:

"No More Collapses."

-NICK COLEMAN-
Minneapolis Star Tribune
8-2-07

Paul O.,

You are getting wierder by the second. And dude you need to do something about your anger issues.

Harry Reid blah blah land deal blah blah Bill Clinton blah blah loony lefty blah blah Tony Rezko blah blah liberal media blah blah blah blah.................

Well in it is part of Interstate Highway system, so it would be appropriate for the feds to rebuild.

Leave it to Senator Land Grab to make political hay out of it before the bosies are even cold.

"THANK YOU SENATOR REID"

BEYOND PARTISAN POLITICS SOMEONE STEPS FORWARD AND DOESN'T DO THE SAME GAME, THE BLAME GAME.

BEYOND PARTISAN POLITICS AND VETO, AFTER VETO, AFTER VETO THREATS FROM THE GOP TOWARDS ANYTHING THAT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH DOMESTIC SPENDING OTHER THAN OUR FAILED NEW AGENCY DHS AKA THE "SECRETARY," HAS EXTENDED REAL APPROAPRIATED MONIES AND NOT 4MILLION DOLLARS.

WE THANK YOU GREAT SENATOR THE PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA THANK YOU FOR TRYING, BUT YOU AND I BOTH KNOW THAT THE PRESIDENT WILL VETO THAT AS IT IS "AMERICAN PORK" AND THAT IS A NO NO IN HIS GOVERNMENT. WE THANK YOU FOR NOT WAITING FOUR DAYS TO MAKE NOTICE OF THE HORRIFIC TRAGEDY FROM YESTERDAY.

80 MILLION FOR THE PALESTINIANS AND 4 MILLION DOLLARS FOR THE GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA WAS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY AGAIN IN AMERICA AND WE THANK YOU FOR A TRUE GOVERMENTAL RESPONSE TO A NATIONAL DISASTER IN OUR GREAT COUNTRY. HATS OFF TO YOU SIR.

LONG LIVE NANCY PELOSI!

Take Ted Steven's pork to nowhere money and put it to good use. He threatened to resign if the Coburn Amendment passed. That threat seems a little empty now.

Memo to White House - Bridge failure determined to strike in US.

In other news, pillow says blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

and so forth. Basically amounting to nothing.

Geez, here Sen. Shady Land Deals Reid turns a terrible tragedy into political grandstanding. This guy is beyond being a joke, he is a national humiliation and shame to Nevada.
Couldn't he have included Sen. Coleman? Why must this become a political grandstand. The man has no shame. He should resign for the disgrace of a human slug that he is.

Hey Mankato,
What was she supposed to have been doing? She hasn't even been in office for 6 months. We have a problem that has been know about for over 17 years, that politicians of all parties have ignored & avoided and the best you can do is place the blame on freshman Senator? This is a tragedy & a colossal failure on the part of our state & federal Governments. Take your partisan BS elsewhere.

It is very blatant politics that a senator
no one hears from or reads about for years suddenly shows up to announce action she should have taken years ago. She's a U.S. senator, for goodness sakes, and as such, has access to hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been used years ago for
replacement of a bridge deemed in public documents as deficient. Minnesota needs more from its politicians than just cutting a ribbon now and then.

Facts:

http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_statistics_annual_report/2006/html/chapter_02/table_l_09.html

Another mess of the previous administration that President Bush has to clean up

Well, we spent a lot of money on light rail that only serves people who travel from the airport to downtown! And we are spending a lot of money so millionares can play sports in new statiums that were voted down several times! And our gas tax money was used to balance the budget!

Does anyone think there will be real planning to repair and replace our infrastructure after this disaster or will it be another Katrina?

Senator Klobuchar began in office Jan. 7 and has served 7 months, not six. But she is no neophyte in Minn. politics.
Being new to the office didn't stop Democrats from blaming George Bush for
9-11 after serving just over 7 months.

Facts:

http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_statistics_annual_report/2006/html/chapter_02/table_l_09.html

Another mess of the previous administration that President Bush has to clean up

Posted by: Terry | August 2, 2007 10:10 PM

1. The "facts" on that chart show that the number of structurally deficient bridges remained essentially constant from '95 to '05. What that means, Terry, is that the situation did not improve under Dear Leader's careful stewardship.

2. I may have missed it, but I don't recall Dear Leader ever saying a word about infrastructure improvements, let alone proposing a program to clean up the "mess." My memory's not so good, so maybe you can refresh it: which party controlled the U.S. Government for the last 7 years?

3. Just like 9-11, I really think Bush's "best case" here is that he did neither harm nor good. I realize that this represents a significant improvement over his typical incompetence, but it's really nothing for a deadender like you to crow about.

Little Terry has been a very busy boy spreading that same little lie in a number of threads here.

Take a look at the numbers in the link folks, You'll find that the number of bridges deemed insufficient was reduced at a much higher rate during the Clinton years, then it has under Bush.

Bad Terry! Bad!

That said, our infrastructure issues are a non-partisan failure. Neither party had done enough, and we've built up to this level of need over decades.

Harry Reid's first reaction to any tragedy: Get in front of a tv camera.

Terry:

It's been almost 7 years now for Bush to "clean up" the mess from the previous administration. What has he been waiting for??

W can send billions to Iraq to rebuild their bridges, but when it comes to the infrastructure here, it's up to the states. How many unsafe bridges here could have been rebuilt with the money we have sent to Iraq - just counting the billions they can't account for??

As we have said so many times here, why do Bush and the GOP hate America??

[quote]
Another mess of the previous administration that President Bush has to clean up

Posted by: Terry | August 2, 2007 10:10 PM
[/quote]

Bush and the Republican dominated House and Senate have had the past 6 years - so why didn't THEY "clean up the mess from the previous administration"?

Because they wanted to waste $500 billion dollars attacking a country so that Dubya could fulfill a personal vendetta against the "man who tried to hurt my daddy".

All Terry has proven is that it takes time and years to design, plan and repair bridges. The work was obviously started during the Clinton Administration and they were being finished during Bush's. I'm sure we won't see any follow up posts from Terry showing the dates that many of those bridge repairs began because they will no doubt show that the work started when Clinton was in office. Good night Terry:)

News Flash!!!!!!!!!

Bush just sent another blank check to Halliburton for the new bridge in Minneapolis!!!!!!!

Reality from the MN Department of Transportatin 8/10/05):

"U.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."

The reality is that the Bush administrtion has dramaticaly increased MN bridge funding over the previous (Clinton) administration, and the number of suspect bridges has been reduced from when Clinton was in office.

That's it folks. Just pack it up, go home and wait for something new to kill you. This isn't about blame, grandstanding or allocation of funds. It's about the government (a basically every level) NOT WORKING.
If Al Quaeda doesn't get you, the bridge in your home town will. If a shoe bomb doesn't do it, a toy manufactured in China will. If a pit bull doesn't get you, your poorly prescribed prescription meds will.

IF THE REPUBLICANS DON'T GET YOU, THE DEMOCRATS WILL.

"U.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."

Yada yada yada... earboy has made great progress getting up ans telling everybody how much the feds are going to spend on something that's good for the US. Now, go out and find out how much of that money actually went out to Minnesota. In case you're wondering, MN needs $875M per year to fulfill that promise. Did they get it?

Like I said in a previous post, I went off on Clinton earlier, unfortuately I did that after reading some nonsense that John E wrote - I should know better.

I will stand by remarks that President Bush has not been neglectful of this issue.

ablinkin,

The % of structurally deficint has dropped nearly 10% in the last five years.

Seven years ago, we had split gov't. Six years ago, we had the Republican in power unti Jeffords switched parties, then we had split gov't. From the 2002 elections thru 2006, we had Republicans in charge.

BC,

The war on terror has not slowed dwon the repairing of the nations bridges - the table bears that out.

Here is an article from USA today - so please tell me how the responsibility for the collapse of this bridge rest at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-02-minneapolis-bridge_N.htm