Dragging “politics” into the Minneapolis bridge collapse

August 4, 2007

I assumed at some point someone would suggest that the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because needed repairs were shorted or ignored in order to keep taxes low. And that someone else would say “how dare you bring politics into this?” As though, you know, bridges collapse for no reason. Sure enough, commenter “Paul” at Boing Boing:

As a resident of MN, I was appalled last night when I had the local news on and there was someone on there blaming the bridge collapse on MN not having raised the gas tax since 1988. I couldn’t believe it! During this time of crisis, they bring politics into it and are trying to push for a gas tax! [ Minneapolis bridge collapse: blog roundup ]

Boing Boing also links to Michael B. Brodkorb of Minnesota Democrats Exposed, who writes:

I was hoping that Minnesota Democrats wouldn’t politicize this tragedy. Sadly, some have. I was disgusted by Elwyn Tinklenberg comments on KARE-11. Talk of blaming this tragedy on the failure to raise the gas-tax increase is disgusting. [ MINNESOTA DEMOCRATS POLITICIZE 35-W BRIDGE COLLAPSE ]

Paul, Michael and anyone else who agrees with them can both bite me. If there’s anything that’s clearly a political issue and a direct result of tax policy and spending priorities, it’s the maintenance of our freaking roads. And the maintenance of roads are clearly tied to our tax policies.

Paul says it’s clearly not a tax issue “because MNDOT made the assessment that the bridge was fine.” I say if Paul had a brain it would rattle like a pea in a gourd. Have the last few years of national politics taught you nothing? When you’re more committed to tax cuts than you are to safety, you find a lot of stuff that can slide for awhile.

Rick Perlstein points out:

This year two Democratic Minnesotan legislatures passed a $4.18 billion transportation package. Minnesota’s Republican governor vetoed it because he had taken a no-new-taxes pledge, Grover Norquist-style. That’s just what conservative politicians do. [ Tax Cut Death Toll ]

As a result I imagine an MNDOT manager saying something like: “Do we really need to fix that bridge this year, or can we let it go another year? If we let it go another year, we can spend that money elsewhere. We can’t do both.”

When you ask departments to cut their budgets or impress upon them the need for belt-tightening, they start to make decisions like this. Inspectors give passing grades to bridges that should be failed. We take risks we shouldn’t.

Paul and Michael know this. Unless they are filthy rich they have undoubtedly seen this gamble take place inside families. “I don’t think this cough is pneumonia, so I’ll just drink some more hot tea and hope it goes away.” They have seen it in the corporate offices: “we don’t have time to test this widget, we’ll put out a patch in a month.” And it happens at the government level.

For decades now we’ve had political consensus that nothing is more important than cutting taxes and shrinking government. Has the money been taken away from pork projects and government spending boondoggles? Apparently not. Where the savings have come from is the bone of our natural infrastructure. The unsexy, often unseen government maintenance projects. Keeping the water mains working, keeping the streets safe, keeping the first-responders well-trained and equipped, keeping the National Guard well-trained and equipped (and home), keeping the levies upright and watertight, and keeping our national response to natural disasters up to snuff.

We’ll pay a billion-with-a-B dollars to contractors to build an embassy the size of Vatican in Baghdad with slave labor. But fund our transportation department? What are you, some tax-and-spend liberal?

No one is politicizing this subject. The subject is already political, it is the role of politics, it is the job of government, and it is anti-tax and anti-government policies that caused that bridge to fall, New Orleans to be drowned, the steam-pipe in Manhattan to explode, sinkholes to eat our neighborhoods, bacteria to infest our spinach, dangerous ingredients to go unnoticed in our Chinese imports.

We don’t need less taxes. We need less war profiteering. And better priorities.

Posted in Politics, Speaking Very Slowly