Little progress since Minnesota bridge collapse

[Friday on my mind]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080730..._year_later;_ylt=AjQNWKTdIdHnmR8y3IHppl9I2ocA

MINNEAPOLIS - A year after the worst U.S. bridge collapse in a generation brought calls for immediate repairs to other spans, two of every three of the busiest problem bridges in each state — carrying nearly 40 million vehicles a day — have had no work beyond regular maintenance.

An Associated Press review of repairs on each state's 20 most-traveled bridges with structural deficiencies found just 12 percent have been fixed. In most states, the most common approach was to plan for repairs later rather than fix problems now.


Some states wound up with more than 20 structurally deficient bridges in the AP analysis because they had additional, newly categorized, busy bridges that were structurally deficient.

Understandably, Minnesota's response has been among the most vigorous.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature, with some Republican help, overrode GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto of the $6.6 billion transportation spending plan, which raised the gas tax, local sales taxes and vehicle registration fees. The Senate then sacked his transportation commissioner, who had resisted the increased spending and higher taxes. "


The Gov of MN mentioned above is regarded as one of the leading candidates to be McCains runningmate,why is a good question.Someone who needed to be over-ridden and fought the needed spending on the bridges,Yep who cares about those bridges as long as the taxes are kept low is the pub view I guess.Better get them out before you have no jobs,the bridges all fall over and a lot of us are homeless.

 

[Roughneck]

Better get them out before you have no jobs,the bridges all fall over and a lot of us are homeless.

Ah yes! What would we poor, widdle, ignorant folk do without our benevolent savior - the government!

Why! We'd have no food! No homes! No clothes! No fancy bridges! No nothing!

We'd be at the mercy of the elements. And hyenas. Turkeys even!
Oh save us! Save us Uncle Sam! We're lost without thee!

- R.

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." --Thomas Jefferson

 

[Kingfisher]

Are you surprised? That's the Government for you.

 

[calpoon]

fuggit. aint my problem.

better to put our money where it's needed, like another hundred years of warfare in Iraq.

 

[senob44]

fuggit. aint my problem.

better to put our money where it's needed, like another hundred years of warfare in Iraq.

Exactly! We can't waste money on infrastructure! We've got a war on!

General McCain! Lead us further into battle! Plunge us so far into the shithole that is the Middle East that no ***** the Democrats can come up with will ever get us out!

On a local note, it was reported today that repairs to the 76 year old Pulaski Skyway are going to take 4 times the 10 million dollars originally estimated.

 

[maildude]

They just did a story on the local news about all of the bridge problems around here. Must be a nationwide dilemma.

 

[Friday on my mind]

Ah yes! What would we poor, widdle, ignorant folk do without our benevolent savior - the government!

Why! We'd have no food! No homes! No clothes! No fancy bridges! No nothing!

We'd be at the mercy of the elements. And hyenas. Turkeys even!
Oh save us! Save us Uncle Sam! We're lost without thee!

Quote:
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." --Thomas Jefferson


- R.

Jefferson and the others of his time could not in their wildest dreams imagined the country/world of today as opposed to their world which was a country of 13 eastern colonies connected by dirt paths where travel took weeks between them and crossing the mississippi was no small feat.So yes without govt in the modern world you would not have most of the infrastructure like highway system,the bridges,dams etc that make modern live possible.Or do yo you think voluntary charity by well meaning libertarians was going to construct and maintain such things? There world was much less inter-connected and inter-dependant and much less reliant on govt for the neccessary conditions to thrive.

 

[Torre82]

Staying true to the founding fathers decree is like staying true to the bible.. it was a very useful text for the time but we've grown past many of the original guidelines.

There is a nice difference between respecting the old rules.. and old people telling you to respect rules.

 

[neighborboy]

Agreed. Instead of digging up old corpses and parading them around when what they say suits us, how about we man-up and start thinking for ourselves?

 

[Facetious]

Add insult to injury - little in the form of taxes are being collected from fuel sales . . .

I was going to say that fuel sales "are in the tank". :tongue:
Apparently, gasoline sales are down approx 40 % as compared to last year. There's a whole hell of a lot of tax revenue built into those fuel sales ! Too bad they didn't account for that.
Look for govt to come up with new crafty "temporary" taxes to get exactly what they want . . . and more ! :thefinger

Besides, I thought that the bush administration had sold off all of our bridges and highways to Spain and the United Emirates :dunno:
www.spp.gov

Is this another govt heist ? First they raid the treasury, then, in secrecy, they sell off our infrastructure, then they raid the treasury again, now they're after us . . again ? !!

 

[StopgapThe Dude]

They just did a story on the local news about all of the bridge problems around here. Must be a nationwide dilemma.

Oh Og yes. and it's not just bridges but highways and other roads along with the nations rail system. In fact the whole transportation infrastructure is in serious and severe decay, with little or no money being put forward to attempt even nominal fixes.

As for this bit:

voluntary charity by well-meaning libertarians

is a fucking joke. Libertarians such as Grover Norquist believe in privately financed "public services" including police, fire and rescue and roads. In essence, if your town had a privater fire fighting service and you didn't contribute/pay/help to pay for it and your property was on fire, the firefighters would refuse to respond or provide any assistance.

 

[Friday on my mind]

As for this bit: is a fucking joke. Libertarians such as Grover Norquist believe in privately financed "public services" including police, fire and rescue and roads. In essence, if your town had a privater fire fighting service and you didn't contribute/pay/help to pay for it and your property was on fire, the firefighters would refuse to respond or provide any assistance.

Good stuff!:thumbsup:
That is my reply to people who think health care should be private and for profit,that some things just don't lend themselves well to those kind of paramaters and terms, like police and fire fighters as well.

 

[Facetious]

^ ^ Firefighting is the most basic form of "essential socialism"

Are they really that broke ? !! We keep rehiring them over and over and over . . . who's the looser here ?

How in the hell does govt get away with pointing their fingers at those of us that actually know something about managing money ? . . . as if this crisis is of our making ?

we've grown past . . .

I love it !

 

[StopgapThe Dude]

Good stuff!:thumbsup:
That is my reply to people who think health care should be private and for profit,that some things just don't lend themselves well to those kind of paramaters and terms, like police and fire fighters as well.

This actually happened a year or so ago, I think it was in Minnesota or Montana, Idaho.

What made it even worse was that in this case the original fire was on the property of one of those who did pay for the private fie service, but it spread to a non-payers house. The firefighters contained the fire on the payers house but refused to so much as throw one spray of water on the non-payers house, in fact they sat and watched it burn and even prevented the owner and friends from using the equipment themselves to fight the fire.

 

[hedonis]

Not digging up corpses, and nothing to do with 13 colonies connected with dirt paths. The founding fathers simply did not want to see a country where everyone was controlled by a large, centralized government. And the difference between the founding fathers, the constitution, and the bible is that the bible is a collection of stories (whether believed or not), while the constitution is a government document spelling out law.

So you want a federal government, who is constantly criticized as being uncaring, stupid, deceitful, criminal, underhanded, etc. etc. etc. to administer health care to everyone?

:rofl:

And that veto didn't sound like a bad idea to me- the funds they were attempting to raise were all out of the wallets and purses of the citizens. INCREASED sales taxes, INCREASED fuel taxes, and vehicle registration fees. Wow- never let it be said that the government actually gives two shits about the "working man" they always claim to be on the side of.

The governments, on every level, waste so much money every year, I have no doubt in my mind they could have come up with that money from elsewhere. Between local, county, state, and federal, they couldn't shuffle around the funds to do that? Sad.

We have too much government, and too many people involved in it who shouldn't be.

H

 

[StopgapThe Dude]

Not digging up corpses, and nothing to do with 13 colonies connected with dirt paths. The founding fathers simply did not want to see a country where everyone was controlled by a large, centralized government. And the difference between the founding fathers, the constitution, and the bible is that the bible is a collection of stories (whether believed or not), while the constitution is a government document spelling out law.

So you want a federal government, who is constantly criticized as being uncaring, stupid, deceitful, criminal, underhanded, etc. etc. etc. to administer health care to everyone?

:rofl:

And that veto didn't sound like a bad idea to me- the funds they were attempting to raise were all out of the wallets and purses of the citizens. INCREASED sales taxes, INCREASED fuel taxes, and vehicle registration fees. Wow- never let it be said that the government actually gives two shits about the "working man" they always claim to be on the side of.

The governments, on every level, waste so much money every year, I have no doubt in my mind they could have come up with that money from elsewhere. Between local, county, state, and federal, they couldn't shuffle around the funds to do that? Sad.

We have too much government, and too many people involved in it who shouldn't be.

H

Wow a completely pointless and utterly meaningless bleat and fart that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem stated in the OP.

Instead of farting out some bullshit that you just got off of a website, try coming up with some actual original thoughts of your own and while that is no doubt way too hard for you to do, at the very least come up with a solution to the problem in the OP, a sane and rational one.

Otherwise go fuck yourself in your **** smeared butthole.:thefinger:thefinger:thefinger

 

[Friday on my mind]

So you want a federal government, who is constantly criticized as being uncaring, stupid, deceitful, criminal, underhanded, etc. etc. etc. to administer health care to everyone?

:rofl:

Is our govt worse then lets say France or Canada or the other developed nations which all have universal health care of some form.I don't think so.They spend way less cover everyone and the stats show the populations of their countries are healthier for it.Yeah I trust the govt far more than I do for profit corporations,FAR MORE.

And that veto didn't sound like a bad idea to me- the funds they were attempting to raise were all out of the wallets and purses of the citizens. INCREASED sales taxes, INCREASED fuel taxes, and vehicle registration fees. Wow- never let it be said that the government actually gives two shits about the "working man" they always claim to be on the side of.

The governments, on every level, waste so much money every year, I have no doubt in my mind they could have come up with that money from elsewhere. Between local, county, state, and federal, they couldn't shuffle around the funds to do that? Sad.

We have too much government, and too many people involved in it who shouldn't be.

H

Ahh the old fraud, waste and ***** line.Sure there is some of that but most is in the defense establishment or corporate welfare.And I don't know who else but the citizens should be paying for such.If we follow what you recommend the result will be nothing gets done the infrastructure keeps deterioating etc.
That has been the republican stance since Reagan,cut taxes on the rich let everybody else and the country go to hell.