Politicizing a disaster. Making “wildly unfair assertions”- by which is meant insisting that my political opponents be held accountable for their actions (and inactions). Being “partisan”. I’m sorry, I didn’t get the memo that these behaviors were only allowable if you were a Republican.

When George Bush used 9-11 to justify everything from the war in Iraq to torture to unlawful detention to domestic spying, and with Guiliani campaigning on his 9-11 image (his actual 9-11 record is nothing to campaign on), I thought disasters were open to politicization.

And speaking of empathizing with the victims- I really do hope that the 90-some people (last count I’ve seen) who were injured in the bridge collapse all have health insurance, and that the health insurance decides to pay for their claims. I’d hate it if they ended up like the rescue workers from 9-11, having to wait until Michael Moore takes them to Cuba for medical treatment.

As for making wildly unfair assertions- this is true only for the most specific of circumstances. Would this specific transportation bill have prevented this specific disaster? Probably, even almost certainly, not. Of course, once you expand the field beyond the that most specific level, the wildly unfair assertion starts looking pretty much like a totally fair fact. The fact is that 26% of our bridges in this country are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete (cite). Which doesn’t mean that they’re guaranteed, or even highly like, to fall down. But with 12,000 bridges in the country, it doesn’t take that high of a probability of collapse before we start losing bridges regularly.

And the reason those bridges are in the “high enough risk to be significant” category is because of the last thirty years of budget cuts, demanded by the Republicans. Especially Republicans like the Tax Payers League, Grover Norquist, and everyone who brought us or cheered on Reganomics. Guess what- a government small enough to be drowned in a bathtub isn’t big enough to keep the bridges maintained. Who knew? (Besides those people who can count above 10 with their shoes on, I mean)

But even the whole issue of bridge repair and road repair are only part of the picture. As I pointed out, and you- Chia- ignored.

I do have to compliment you, however, on the way you tap danced around what, exactly, Pawlenty’s alternative plan was. As much as I admire your softshoe, however, I’m still going to call you on it. Here is the core of the Pawlenty alternative (from the link you helpfully provided):

Financing and accelerating more than 25 high-priority state highway construction projects through a $1.7 billion, 10-year bonding program.

Maybe there was a reason Pawlenty’s alternative wasn’t acceptable.

Finance 101 for Republicans: when you borrow money to pay for something, you immediately make that something significantly more expensive. You not only have to pay the cost, you have to pay the interest on the cost. And despite Republican wishing, the bill does come due.

Maybe there was a reason that, in a state with a balanced budget and healthy economy, lawmakers on both sides of the isle thought that the state could afford to repair the roads without the addition expense of borrowing money to do so- having the double advantage of making government both smaller and cheaper in the long run, and leaving that credit available for when the state really does need it.

I also find it humorous that you choice cite that the Democrats are also fiscally irresponsible is a proposal to raise taxes on the top tax bracket. When Republican tax cuts primarily benefit the rich, this isn’t objectionable and barely even notable- but try and raise taxes on the rich? Horrors!

This is the Republican philosophy in a nut shell (appropriate phrase, that): tax cuts for the rich, and the rest of us catch as catch can.

The (highly recommend) science fiction author Spider Robinson once observed that anger is fear, always. I agree with him on this. I’m pissed as hell at the Republicans at this point because I am scared as hell of the Republicans at this point. I’m scared that I’m going to be declared an enemy combatant, and suffer permanent arrest without trial, torture, and rape. I’m scared that the far right wingnuts are going to stop threatening violence against the liberals and start acting on those threats (more so than they already do, I mean). I’m scared that a hurricane will hit my city (they do hit New York City- not often, but they do happen, and the odds are high right now) and that, since I don’t own a car and thus can’t conveniently evacuate the city, I’ll be one of the people dying of thirst up on my roof top. I’m scared that climate change caused by human released greenhouse gasses will kick of gigadeath due to starvation due to crop failure. I’m scared that since Osama Bin Laden is still free, and has a hot new recruiting tool in the form of the Iraqi invasion, that he’ll launch another attack on New York, and this time I get to be at ground zero. I’m scared that Bush will attack Iran, making our problems in the middle east way worse, and pushing gas to up over $10/bbl, push the US economy into a depression. I’m scared that Bush might nuke Iraq, making the problem infinitely worse.

I lived blocks from the I-35 bridge for years. I crossed it myself tens of thousands of times. I still have family and the vast bulk of my friends in Minneapolis. I have nothing but empathy for the victims. It damned easily could have been me or mine on that bridge.

That’s why I’m reacting the way I am. I’m scared, not to put too fine a point on it, that next victim of Republican incompetence and malfeasance, will be me.

Popularity: 4% [?]

So, it looks like there is a liberal movement to scapegoat Gov. Tim Pawlenty for the I-35W collapse.

First I heard about this angle through mailing lists and friends.

Then I heard of Nick Coleman’s STrib article, which climaxes at these phrases: “In a word, it was avoidable. That means it should never have happened. And that means that public anger will follow our sorrow as sure as night descended on the missing. For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes.”.

Then there is Brian’s post, which made this wildly unfair assertion: “It needed to be replaced. But it wasn’t. Because that would have required- gasp- a tax increase. Which wasn’t going to get past Republican governor Tim Pawlenty:”

And now here’s “Countdown”, which I normally like quite a bit, but is simply off base here:

And there are all kinds of other cries like this from Democrats in Minnesota (cite).

These characterizations are blatantly and wildly unfair. What they miss is that the Minnesota legislative and executive branches have been at each other’s throat since at least the Ventura administration, and they are so unable to work with each other that budget years usually result in governmental shutdowns. It’s been an incredible mess. At first, people blamed this on Ventura. Then people blamed it on Republican vs. Democratic partisanship. But having a Republican governor and a Republican house hasn’t seemed to help much: even when the partisan bickering can reach a compromise, there’s usually a veto pen waiting in the wings.

This was the case with Pawlenty and the transportation bill. Pawlenty and the Congress both agreed highway funding needed to increase (cite), but they disagreed on how to do it — the Congress wanted to hike the gas tax, which Pawlenty considered ridiculous in the face of record-high gas prices which were already hurting the gas-hungry Minnesota economy. Increasing gas prices inordinately hurt farmers and the middle class, who were precisely the people that needed relief.

But Congress wasn’t willing to consider that plan at all. And so Pawlenty vetoed the transportation bill, because he, the Governor, wasn’t even consulted when it was being drafted. Congress thought they had support to override the veto he warned them about, but that support vanished at the last minute, and the veto wasn’t overridden. And instead of bringing Pawlenty into the conversation, the Congress went to recess. Pawlenty did not call them back for a special session. And so both Pawlenty and the Congress, although agreeing that we needed more funding for transportation, walked away from increasing funding because they weren’t willing to compromise.

So the transportation bill not passing is because of a failure of the MN government to compromise in order to reach shared goals. It is not just Pawlenty’s fault, or the Republican’s fault: I don’t want to hear that crap anymore, and I encourage anyone who does hear that crap to pitch this article into the fray.

What’s even worse is the implied argument that “If there was just more money for transportation, this wouldn’t have happened.” The argument is usually not explicitly made (because it’s simply wrong), but it’s necessary for the failure of increased transportation funding to be the cause of the I-35W bridge collapse. (If more money wouldn’t have solved the problem, then having more money available through the transportation bill wouldn’t have solved the problem.) This argument is just flat-out wrong. The bridge seemed safe for use for more than another decade (cite), and as sexy as it is to call it “Half Chance Bridge” or “Structurally Deficient”, the reality is that it seemed fit for use, if needing minor repairs. In the last few years, MNDoT has taken on a large number of voluntary traffic improvement projects, most significantly rebuilding the Crosstown (Highway 62) to 35W interchange and building the Light Rail Transit line on the Highway 55 Corridor. There is obviously plenty of money in the MNDoT budget for voluntary projects — if anyone knew the I-35W bridge was in deep trouble, that would have been a higher-priority, involuntary project for MNDoT to undertake. Indeed, there was an expansive study which concluded: “The research helped determine that the fatigue cracking of the deck truss is not likely, which means that the bridge should not have any problems with fatigue cracking in the foreseeable future. As a result, Mn/DOT does not need to prematurely replace this bridge because of fatigue cracking, avoiding the high costs associated with such a large project.”

Even more, Governor Pawlenty didn’t sign the “No New Taxes” pledge during his most recent run (cite), and we’re running a budget surplus (cite). Although that budget surplus didn’t stop the Senate Democrats from trying to give us the heaviest top-tier tax burden (cite). In any case — money is simply not the problem in this state.

So will the liberals, who like to label themselves as “reality-based” and political inheritors of the scientific method, please stop with this nonsense? It’s partisan BS, and it’s driving me nuts.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I want to note a couple caveats to the generalizations in this post.

As I researched a bit for this blog, one of the things that astounded me was the reasonably sane approach taken by some popular diaries on Daily Kos: specifically this one and this one. The former is analyzing why Pawlenty might be in trouble, it’s at least an informed and more-or-less fair approach: politically, Pawlenty is in trouble if funding seems like a cooling feature, because people aren’t going to remember the stand-off, but just his veto. The latter actually opens with these words, which made me fall out of my chair: “I’ve seen a lot of diaries about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis and how it’s ALL THE REPUBLICANS’ FAULT. This is a completely unfair, cherry-picking kind of attitude.” (Although it does say “Not enough taxes to perform maintenance of infrastructure leads to collapse of roads, bridges, tunnels, etc.”, implying the fallacious arguments addressed above.) The comments on these diaries are not as well-thought-out or fair, but you expect that from any kind of free exchange.

Also, the condemnation-by-association is a bit harsh on Nick Coleman, who did say in his article: “I’m not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It is general. Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics.” and “And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through…”, but only after bashing Pawlenty by name and neglecting to mention Pawlenty’s alternative funding scheme.

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That’s what the I-35W Bridge over the Mississippi River was called just last year. It needed to be replaced. But it wasn’t. Because that would have required- gasp- a tax increase. Which wasn’t going to get past Republican governor Tim Pawlenty:

But it was all a moot exercise anyway. Literally wielding a big red VETO stamp to appease the no-tax crowd that remains hell-bent on a something-for-nothing relationship with government, Gov. Tim Pawlenty deep-sixed the bipartisan transportation bill. “How dumb can they be?” he sneered of the lawmakers who dared approve a tax hike to fix the state’s roads. (Ironically, it was less than 24 hours later that Pawlenty came back with a proposal to raise the price of cigarettes 75 cents, claiming with a straight face that it wasn’t a tax but a “health impact fee.” The courts have subsequently ruled that, due to the state’s settlement with the tobacco companies, such a “fee” can’t be levied. Because Pawlenty refuses to call it a tax, the state is spending time and money to appeal the ruling.)

It’s not that the Republicans are against spending money- in addition to the Cigarette tax mentioned above, Minnesota is also shelling out for a new Twins Stadium. It’s just that they’re not willing to spend money on frivolous things, like education, or bridge repair.

And it’s not just Minnesota that has a problem with aging, unmaintained, infrastructure. Maybe you heard about the steam pipe burst here in New York a little bit ago? That pipe was over 80 years old. Here’s the kicker- it’s one of the younger steam pipes hiding underneath New York’s streets. And our subways are also over 100 years old, and also show signs of neglect and decay- peeling paint, crumbling platforms, staglitites and stalagmites forming due to water leaks old enough to vote- all of these I see daily.

And the biggest diaster of them all: New Orleans. The Federal Goverment saves literally hundreds of millions of dollars pre-2005 cutting spending on flood control and levee maintainance. The cost, of course, was a city destroyed (and not yet rebuilt).

And what’s worse: we’re spending $30 billion to ship arms to Saudi Arabia, $30 billion to build a wall to keep the Mexicans out, but only $6.4 billion to help New Orleans rebuild.

The common thread of all of these stories is a mismanaged government that ends up paying for the pound cure in an attempt to avoid paying for the ounce of prevention. Infrastructure maintainance delayed quickly leads to infrastructure needing to be replaced, at much greater cost, or infrastructure failing catastrophically, at giagantic cost. This is also the case with our health care system- those 45 million people with health insurance do get free, government funded, health care- they call it the “emergency room”. There is a value, when you get wheeled into an emergency room, to having the doctors and the nurses not worrying about wether you can pay or not, but instead worrying exclusively about how to treat you. Even if you can pay. So, in order to keep that value, we end up paying for the pound of cure.

In what possible way is this fiscally responsible?

In the meanest way possible- the goal here is to not pay for either. To pay for neither the ounce of prevention nor the pound of cure.

I return to the City Pages article quoted earlier:

This scenario plays perfectly into the hands of Tim Pawlenty and those Taxpayers League types who subscribe to a “starve the beast” theory of reducing the size of government. No one should be surprised that Pawlenty is suddenly cheerleading for a measure that survived his veto; it is a chance to bang the drum for $300 million per year in “additional” transportation monies without raising anybody’s taxes. The political calculus is simple enough: Let it fall to the Democrats to point out that those revenues will necessarily be taken from schools (K-12 and higher education make up 50 percent of the general fund) or health care (20 percent). And when they do, claim that the “hole” will be filled by a growing economy freed from the yoke of tax increases.

That is the false choice presented- which would you rather have, decent schools to teach the children, or bridges safe enough to drive over? There is only enough money (after the non-negotiable ball parks and tax cuts) for one. And soon, there won’t be enough for either.

Of the $80-100 billion New York needed to recover after 9-11, Bush ponied up only $20 billion, and a quarter of that was in tax cuts. The Katrina aftermath set new lows for Government incompetence and corruption. And go see “Sicko” for what’s going on with health care. Bush promises to help Minnesota rebuild- my advice, don’t trust those promises until you see the money. And don’t expect to see the money.

We can no longer afford Republican-run government. We can no longer afford tax cuts and fiscal mismanagement. The bill is comming due- not just in terms of money, but also in terms of lives. And the big will be huge. We’ve got tons of cure we need to spring for, in addition to the pounds of prevention, in order to make up for lost time. The money “saved” by the Republicans must now be made good for. In a time of crushing debt and economic imbalance- coincidentally making it harder to provide either the ounce of prevention or the pound of cure.

The real structural deficiency is not in our bridges, it’s in our politics- that it is an acceptable, even laudable, political position to make the goverment “small enough to be drowned in the bathtub”, as Grover Norquist does. Until this structural deficiency is remedied, I’d be carefull crossing bridges.

Popularity: 3% [?]