[LMB] OT: Bridge collapse

[Sarah B.]

I'm from Minneapolis and I take 35W to and from
fencing at least twice a week.  This is a horrible
accident, but only a freak accident, as far as anyone
can tell.  As for the article in Reason Magazine, the
fact that Hennepin County had it's sales tax raised to
pay for a stadium (to which I was highly opposed, mind
you) has very little to do with funding for repairing
a state bridge on a major interstate highway which
didn't seem to be in any  danger of collapsing.  And
as to the expected surpluses, yes, there are politics
involved in where funding is allocated, but I'll bet
anything that it would take more than that 2 billion
expected surplus to repair or replace all of the
potentially, possibly dangerous bridges in Minnesota. 
And all of the lawmakers are implicated when a truly
dangerous structure is allowed to stand.  Now, if any
real evidence of neglect or missed warning signs comes
out, then I will be quite willing to point fingers,
but neither of those articles truly represents all of
the factors at play in any governmental system, and
simply blaming either MN or it's lawmakers in general
is not fair.  No one knows yet whether this could have
been reasonably prevented.

Sarah

An avalanche falls on me
Burying me,
Destroying me:
It is my homework


--- Richard Macdonald <don_iain at verizon.net> wrote:

> PAT MATHEWS wrote:
> > 
> > >From an article in Reason Magazine.
> > 
> > "Whatever Minnesota's spending constraints, the
> state can apparently afford
> > to spend hundreds of millions for corporate
> welfare to Carl Pohlad, the
> > owner of the Minnesota Twins, for a new baseball
> stadium. Hennepin County,
> > where the bridge is located, recently passed a new
> .15 percent sales tax
> > solely to pay for Pohlad's new stadium.
...
> > The bridge didn't collapse because Minnesota
> couldn't afford to maintain it.
> > The bridge collapsed because the state had other
> priorities"
> 
> And its even worse than all that, there was plenty
> of state revenues to have rebuilt the bridge:
> 
>
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/11/28/budget/
> 
> State predicts $2 billion budget surplus over next
> three years
> by Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio,
> Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio
> November 29, 2006
> 
> State finance officials say Minnesota will have a
> budget surplus
> that should top $2 billion over the next two-year
> budget cycle.
...
> 
> So it's not like there was no money available, just
> no political
> points to be made just fixing what needs to be
> fixed. Not many
> politicians of any stripe vote for something they
> can't put their
> name on.
> --
> Richard A. Macdonald. CPA/EA
> SSG (Ret), USA, ADA 16P34
> --
> There are 10 kinds of people, those who
> understand binary and those who don't.
> -- 
> Lois-Bujold mailing list
> Lois-Bujold at lists.herald.co.uk
>
http://lists.herald.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lois-bujold
> 



       
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