Minneapolis conservatives lie about infrastructure

From OurFuture.org:


Minneapolis conservatives lie about infrastructure
Submitted by Rick Perlstein on August 21, 2007 - 3:45pm.


Of all of the many right-wing e-newsletters to which I subscribe, none has seemed more emeninently skippable than the one published by the third-raters at Minneapolis's Center for the American Experiement ("Defending the American Dream"). Nonetheless, given current obsessions, I forced myself to slog through the one dated August 20, in which CAE president (and serial "Perlstein" mispeller) Mitch Pearlstein writes:


Several critics over the last two weeks have made the case for at least a dotted-line connection between the terrible collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge and the determination of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and his allies not to raise state taxes over the last five years . But for any connection to hold, at least one of the following conditions would have to be true, when not a single one is.

It would have to be demonstrated, for instance, that decisions by the Minnesota Department of Transportation about what to do about the bridge -- whether to repair it, how to repair it, when to repair it -- were made on the basis of what such steps might cost. But I know of no evidence that money played any role in determining what state officials or anyone else did or didn't do in maintaining the bridge.

Likewise, to draw any suspect connection between the collapse and the consistent preference of large numbers of Minnesotans to hold the line on taxes, one would have to assume that inspectors and other officials charged with protecting and serving allowed anything other than their professionalism to determine how they gauged the sturdiness and fragility of the state's infrastructure....


Read your local paper, Mitch—the one in which the very op-ed above appeared on August 19. The day before that, your Star-Tribune ran an article entitled "Phone Call Put Brakes on Bridge Repair," teased thus: "Plans to reinforce the bridge were well underway when the project came to a screeching halt in January amid concerns about safety and cost." If you're the sort who tends to nod off reading complicated newspaper articles, Mitch, well, their reporting directly contradicted your lies in riveting you-are-there fashion. Pay close attention: ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/minneapolis_conservatives_lie_about_infrastructure?tx=3