Compounding the Tragedy: The Political Blame Game

Shame on the Star Tribune’s Nick Coleman and the rest of the
left who are laying the blame for the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge on
GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

We don’t even know the number–let alone the names–of people
killed. Doesn’t matter to Coleman and
his ilk. Take any shot to smear a
Republican.

Writes Coleman:

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.

"No New Taxes" has nothing to do
with what happened, yesterday.

A few facts for Coleman. In general, the major bridges the federal
government has built become the responsibility of states to maintain, and
states routinely seek and are granted federal funding to help with the
maintenance. The maintenance work being
done on the I-35W bridge by Progressive Contractors, Inc., out of St. Michael,
Minnesota, was on the list of projects of the 2007-2009 State Transportation
Improvement Program (STIP) list. Right
there on page 116 of the report is the I-35W bridge. The $3.3 million price tag was being paid mostly by the federal
government ($2.97 million) and not the state ($330,000).

The National Bridge Inventory
conducted by the federal government in 2003 reported that the bridge had a
"sufficiency" rating of 50% on a scale of 120. That’s not great, but that’s where about 80,000 of the country’s bridges
stand. The significant finding of that
Inventory, however, was that structurally, the bridge "meets minimum tolerable limits
to be left in place as-is."

The federal government didn’t
flag structural issues; neither did MnDOT.

Pawlenty could have raised the
gas tax $50 a gallon and nothing would have happened. The structural condition of the bridge was not on anyone’s radar
screen. At this point, that appears to
be the real issue: All levels of
government may have failed us.

But, specifically, Pawlenty and
his administration have not. Those who
blame Pawlenty and the Republicans for not raising the state’s gas tax since
1988 may want to review their legislative history. From 1988-1996, the Democrats controlled both houses of the state
legislature. Transportation funding
increase efforts stalemated among Democrats because urban DFLers wanted a
permanent funding source for transit (the state gas tax is constitutionally
dedicated to roads).

From 1996-2006, the Republicans
controlled the House and the Democrats held the Senate. To be sure, "no new taxes" prevailed during
those years. The last several years,
the Legislature has sent funding increase packages that have been too rich in
tax increases. The last one included a
ten-cent gas tax increase along with an option by local governments–not the
people–to raise the sales tax for transit.

These weren’t realistic packages.They were meant to embarrass the
Governor.

Nevertheless, no matter how much money government has, it
can’t fix a bridge that’s not on a list of bridges that need fixing.

For the record, in the 1990s, I
did some work for the state’s highway construction companies. We lobbied to increase the gas tax by a
nickel, and obviously, we lost. I
believe the state does need to raise the gas tax (I happen to like to
drive). If Democrats were serious about
increasing transportation funding and not political grandstanding, they would
send Pawlenty a a simple nickel increase bill. Bet he’d sign it