Thursday, August 02, 2007

Let the Blame Game Begin

Nod to Cody for the heads up on this one that's getting digged a lot...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You might as well don me 'Assistant Editor' or something.

Back to the story...

I am sure that there is enough blame to go around, and I am sure that there will be no shortage of it. But is it really fair to blame 'Tim the Grim'? His no taxes policy has led to dramatic escalation in fees (ie vehicle registration etc), and his veto of this bill had more to do with him not wanting to build more light rail (which is stupid, IMO).

One can hope that this does raise additional awareness of infrastructure issues here in the homeland. NBC news last night said that it would take 65 billion dollars to fix all of the bridges that are 'structurally deficient' in the country. Great, lets get started, if we can spend that in Iraq in one fiscal quarter, surely we can afford to spend it here over the next couple years.

Unknown said...

Looks like he changed his mind: From the Pioneer Press:

Pawlenty now open to gas tax increase after bridge collapse

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said tonight he is willing to reverse his longstanding opposition to a state gas tax increase in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse.

The state's gas tax has been at 20 cents per gallon since 1988. Pawlenty had vetoed bills to raise it in 2005 and earlier this year.

"Everything is on the table," Pawlenty said this evening on the "Almanac" news program. "I will be moving to consider and put on the table a gas tax increase."

Pawlenty said he hoped in exchange, legislators would accept some of his ideas for funding roads and bridges.

http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_6538502?nclick_check=1