Minnesota's Weeping Republicans

from The Nation:


article | posted August 10, 2007 (web only)
Minnesota's Weeping Republicans
David Rubenstein


With the collapse of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, governor Tim Pawlenty's career took a big hit. Pawlenty, currently chair of the National Governors Association, has built a career on a no-tax-increase pledge, and he's risen in the ranks of national Republicans because of it. Among other feathers in his cap, he twice vetoed a gas-tax increase that would have provided money to the Department of Transportation, whose purview includes bridge inspection and repair.

Minnesota Republicans have insisted that--even though the bridge was deemed "structurally deficient" and severe corrosion and cracking had been noted almost ten years ago--there is no culpability here. Pawlenty so far has managed to keep the critics at bay. It fell to Carol Molnau, the head of Minnesota's Department of Transportation, to confront the outrage directly, with an impassioned defense of her agency during a press conference. "The dollars go into safety first," she said. There was "no neglect and no malice."

In fact, no one is alleging malice. But institutionalized neglect is what brought Molnau, Pawlenty and the entire post-Reagan Republican onslaught to power and kept it there for most of three decades. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

"Infrastructure" became a buzzword in the early 1980s. Infrastructure renewal was seen as essential for "reindustrialization," which would be required in order to compete with a perceived trade threat from Japan. A 1981 study titled "America in Ruins," commissioned by the Council of State Planning Agencies, caused a stir in the national media when it observed that 20 percent of US bridges needed major work or replacement. Imagine! (Today an even larger percentage is considered "obsolete" or "structurally deficient.") ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/rubenstein

because their stinginess caused the whole fucking problem.

and stood by Pawlenty's side, smiling, as he vetoed the transportation bill last spring. You don't often see a department head happy (or pretending to be) that her department is not getting the money it needs.

and let's just say nothing good comes by doing so. :(

Yeah, that's goofy she'd be smiling. Obviously her department isn't as capable as she wants it to be. Ran like a business too, no doubt. (What a stupid mantra, given the problems businesses are getting into trouble with these days...)

And maybe she was pretending to smile. Tim might have canned her if she did look honest over a budget cut.

likes Molnau (hates Pawlenty - not surprised about that). He said she actually does know her job and most the time does it well - it's when politics interfere that she doesn't do so well. But, he doesn't think she's not the one who should be made the sacraficial lamb over this mess - at this point he doesn't think anyone should be - though he wouldn't mind seeing Pawlenty and David Strom take the fall.

Nothing surprises me anymore.

are kicked to the curb by the voters.

Brag about NOT raising taxes....and let people die instead. What a fucking legacy!

it looks that he will kick Coleman out of the Senate, reclaiming Wellstone's Senate seat.

Coleman is one of the problems in Minnesota.

Yet the GOP will have their convention in the twin cities because they see MN as a state that could swing "red" with bush clones like Pawlenty. It must suck to be them.