August 18-23, 2007
Aug 18 11:10 Michael's Nervous (Way Late Update Version) Aug 18 11:05 The Transit Terrorists Aug 19 04:23 Putting the Wood To Oberstar Aug 21 23:58 Putting the Wood To Oberstar, Part II Aug 22 13:49 The Taxpayers' Enemy Aug 22 16:13 Changing Course In Iraq Aug 23 01:04 Game, Set, Match??? Aug 23 04:01 Utterly Useless Aug 23 09:50 What Priorities?
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
Prior Years: 2006
Michael's Nervous (Way Late Update Version)
If you've visited Michael's website today, you know that the Brodkorbs are at the hospital awaiting the birth of their twin daughters.
Let me first say that I wish Michael good luck in calming himself down before the 'blessed event'. More importantly, I'm praying that things go smoothly for Mrs. MDE.
Good luck, Mr. & Mrs. MDE. God bless your little angels, too.
Way Late Update: Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. MDE!!! Your daughters are in my prayers. (So are Mom & Dad.)
Posted Saturday, August 18, 2007 11:12 AM
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The Transit Terrorists
Last night, Almanac's political roundtable featured Jane Ranum, who said that she once was known as a Transit Terrorist. It also included Fritz Knaak, Phil Krinkie and Wes Skoglund. Ms. Ranum's rhetoric included several digs at Republicans. One of those digs:
Ranum: The question now is whether the Governor will be listening to that small group of people who just want to focus on roads and bridges or if he'll be listening to the vast majority of people who will want a balanced package.What an awful thought. That small band of number-crunching Republicans that insist we do a good job with the basics might actually prevent Gov. Pawlenty from 'growing in office'. They might prevent him from 'catching the DFL's vision' of LRT. What a screwball Ms. Ranum is. Implicit in that sentence is that she thinks that fiscally responsible Republicans are kooks who don't see the wisdom of the DFL's ways.
It seems to me that paying closer attention to the basics in the aftermath of the I-35W bridge collapse might be exactly what Minnesotans expect. The day that Gov. Pawlenty toured the wreckage with Sen. Coleman, Sen. Klobuchar and Rep. Ellison, Sen. Klobuchar had the line of the day, saying that "Bridges shouldn't fall down in America."
People everywhere basically agreed that we should have a goal of them not falling down, though I'd guess that most think that that isn't realistic that bridges would never collapse. I think part of what came out of the I-35W bridge collapse is that people reassessed transportation issues. I think that most Minnesotans reached the conclusion that we need to pay attention to the basics.
In this statement, Ms. Ranum essentially reverts back to the age old DFL position of feeding the LRT beast while paying minimal lip service to the unglamorous job of bridge and road repair. If anything, I'd say that that's a minority position now. I don't think that Minnesotans wouldn't like hearing the DFL glossing over public safety while dwelling on new LRT projects.
If you think Ranum's drivel thus far was bad, which it was, the bad news is that it got worse:
Ranum: I think right now that the governor is supposedly at 60 percent in the polls...Let me get this straight. It sounds like Ms. Ranum believes that if Gov. Pawlenty listens to "the conservative right" and actually starts dedicating funds to road and bridge repair instead of diverting precious tax dollars to LRT projects, then he'll suffer mightily in the polls. That's foolishness.
Krinkie: Democrats are at 38 percent...
Ranum: If you look at the polls however, you'll see that 53 percent of independents have joined in that. The Governor has to be careful and not be swayed too much by the conservative right or he might wind up with something like George Bush.
Each day, I read some incredibly stupid things on the St. Cloud Times message board. What passes as liberal logic is downright scary. Though Ranum's statements don't rival the dumbest things I've read there, her statements aren't that far off.
While most Minnesotans have taken time in the I-35 tragedy's aftermath to study what might be done different, the DFL has reverted to form, which means their advocating more money for LRT, increasing taxes on everyone and chastising Republicans for actually caring about spending money, not wasting money.
Contrary to Ms. Ranum's rant about Pawlenty marginalizing himself by listening to "the conservative right", it's the DFL who risks marginalizing themselves by not studying the public opinion shifts currently happening.
Posted Saturday, August 18, 2007 3:51 PM
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Putting the Wood To Oberstar
This Opinion Journal article puts the wood to Jim Oberstar's proposed gas tax increase by pointing out the hypocrisy in his assertion that we've underfunded the nation's transportation system. Here's the first shot against Rep. Oberstar:
The gas tax pleas are coming from the usual suspects, in both Washington and St. Paul. James Oberstar, the Minnesota Democrat who runs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, recently stood beside the wreckage and recommended an increase in the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax, as a way to prevent future bridge collapses. His wing man, Alaska Republican and former Transportation Chairman Don Young, agrees wholeheartedly.Over the years, Oberstar has diverted $1.3 billion from the highway trust fund into bike trail projects. That's before factoring in other earmarks. Young is the man responsible for earmarking $223 million for the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere". The same year that Young was granted the earmark for the Bridge to Nowhere, he accumulated $941 million in transportation earmarks for his native Alaska.
As it happens, these are the same men who played the lead role in the $286 billion 2005 federal highway bill. That's the bill that diverted billions of dollars of gas tax money away from urgent road and bridge projects toward Member earmarks for bike paths, nature trails and inefficient urban transit systems.
In other words, Young and Oberstar have diverted well over $2 billion of funding that should've been used for projects that would've made bridges and roads safer. Instead, they built bike trails and bridges to nowhere.
Here's the next shot at Minnesota Democrats:
In Minnesota, meanwhile, politicians and editorial writers imply that the bridge collapse is somehow the fault of those like GOP Governor Tim Pawlenty who believe in the "motto" of no new taxes, as a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune put it. Mr. Pawlenty has been skewered for his veto earlier this year of a 7.5-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase (from 20 cents a gallon currently). Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, has told her Gopher State constituents that if President Bush weren't keeping us in Iraq, bridges wouldn't be falling down.This tragedy has caused people to look more seriously at the impact earmarks have had on public safety. It's also forcing people to ask questions like why we're spending money on LRT, bike trails and the Big Dig boondoggle while ignoring things like bridge and highway maintenance. They didn't pay attention prior to the I-35W bridge collapse but now they're focused like a laser on transportation priorities.
Mr. Pawlenty has been wavering, first saying after the collapse that he was open to a tax increase but more recently showing more reluctance. Democrats in the Legislature are also demanding a sales tax hike to raise another $1.5 billion. What's never explained is why the gas-tax revenue they already raise is so poorly spent.
Minnesota's transportation auditors warned as long ago as 1990 that there was a "backlog of bridges that are classified as having structural deficiencies." In 1999 engineers declared that cracks found in the bridge that collapsed were "a major concern." Bike paths were deemed a higher priority by Congress, however, including its powerful Minnesota Representatives.
While it's true that Republicans like Don Young play the earmark game, it's equally true that Democrats have wasted money on bike trails and other things. At this point, though, Democrats have insisted on the continued funding of LRT. At this point, I don't think that that's a popular position with the average person. In fact, I'd bet that we'll see the pendulum swing back towards voters demanding that politicians do a better job of funding the basics first.
Here's a big shot at the DFL-dominated Minnesota legislature:
Minnesota's state budget is also hardly short of tax revenue. The state spends $25 billion a year, twice what it did 10 years ago. The Tax Foundation reports that Minnesota has the seventh highest personal income tax rates among all states, the third highest corporate tax rates, and the 10th highest taxes on workers.It's obvious that Minnesota needs to do a better job prioritizing its transportation spending. It's obvious that we need to hold taxes down while focusing our spending on public safety. The best way I know how to word this is that LRT is stealing money from important things like bridge safety and alleviating traffic congestion.
The Legislature started the year with a record $2 billion budget surplus, and the economy threw off another $149 million of unexpected revenue. Where did all that money go? Not to roads and bridges. The Taxpayers League of Minnesota says the politicians chose to pour those tax dollars into more spending for health care, art centers, sports stadiums and welfare benefits.
Even transportation dollars aren't scarce. Minnesota spends $1.6 billion a year on transportation--enough to build a new bridge over the Mississippi River every four months. But nearly $1 billion of that has been diverted from road and bridge repair to the state's light rail network that has a negligible impact on traffic congestion. Last year part of a sales tax revenue stream that is supposed to be dedicated for road and bridge construction was re-routed to mass transit. The Minnesota Department of Economic Development reports that only 2.8% of the state's commuters ride buses or rail to get to work, but these projects get up to 25% of the funding.
Posted Sunday, August 19, 2007 4:36 AM
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Putting the Wood To Oberstar, Part II
Sunday, I wrote that the Wall Street Journal had taken Jim Oberstar to the woodshed for a well-deserved spanking. It seems that another newspaper has chastised Oberstar for his fiscal mismanagement.
Rep. Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, cast his proposed tax increase as a moderate request that would funnel about $8 billion per year into a fund that would be dedicated exclusively to bridge and highway repairs. (Now where have we heard that kind of assurance before? Social Security, anyone?)In other words, Oberstar has a major credibility problem because he, like others, have put pet projects ahead of public safety. This isn't to imply that Jim Oberstar wanted bridges to collapse or even that he was indifferent to it. It's just that his priorities were more attuned to 're-election projects'.
"If you're not prepared to invest another five cents in bridge reconstruction and road reconstruction, then God help you," Rep. Oberstar told the Rochester Post-Bulletin.
Nothing like shaming the masses to convince them cough up more of their hard-earned cash.
Add Rep. Oberstar's plan to about a half-dozen other pending Democratic proposals that involve taking more money out of your pocket.
But Rep. Oberstar and his ilk can't avoid the most obvious question, one that should be raised anytime a subordinate asks his boss to bolster his expense account: What are you doing with the rest of your money?
Rep. Oberstar would have Americans believe there isn't a spare nickel in all of Washington. As the watchdogs at Citizens Against Government Waste so dutifully point out, Congress has spent more than $69 billion on frivolous pork over the past three years alone. The 2005 highway bill, which was larded up with low-priority projects including Alaska's "Bridges to Nowhere," already allocates $2 billion per year for bridge repairs.
Rep. Oberstar himself partook in the 2005 porkfest, scoring $14.6 million for his Duluth-area constituents, primarily to extend the nation's longest paved recreation trail.
Now Rep. Oberstar wants all of Congress to go cold-turkey on earmarks. He assures us that despite the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on earmarks and low-priority road projects over the years, the madness will finally stop if only his 5-cent per gallon gasoline tax increase is passed.
"Yes," taxpayers will reply. "Just as the 1986 Immigration Reform & Control Act was the absolute last amnesty Congress would ever award to illegals."
What I've been noticing is that people are demanding that government starts putting a higher priority on bridge and road repair projects than on frivolous things like bridges to nowhere, bike trails and LRT. That doesn't bode well for politicians who've grown addicted to pork for their re-elections.
That's why I found Jane Ranum's comments on Friday night's Almanac so hilarious. Here's two reminders of what she said:
Ranum: The question now is whether the Governor will be listening to that small group of people who just want to focus on roads and bridges or if he'll be listening to the vast majority of people who will want a balanced package.Ms. Ranum's inference that Gov. Pawlenty is in danger of plummeting to President Bush levels is downright silly. The truth is that public opinion in Minnesota, like much of the nation, is tipping in the opposite direction. It's heading in the direction of setting priorities rather than higher taxes. This poll bears that out.
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Ranum: I think right now that the governor is supposedly at 60 percent in the polls,
Krinkie: Democrats are at 38 percent,
Ranum: If you look at the polls however, you'll see that 53 percent of independents have joined in that. The Governor has to be careful and not be swayed too much by the conservative right or he might wind up with something like George Bush.
Posted Tuesday, August 21, 2007 11:59 PM
Comment 1 by Leo Pusateri at 22-Aug-07 11:07 AM
Seems more the case that if Pawlenty caves, he will be plummeting down to Congressional approval levels.
The Taxpayers' Enemy
If Minnesota Taxpayers aren't angry with the DFL already, they will be after hearing that the House DFL doubled their budget, increased their gas allowance & gave major pay increases for Capitol employees. Here's what Marty Seifert said in his press release about them:
Seifert Challenges Democrat Budget PrioritiesIt's about time that people started standing up against the Sertich rules of order. This was done within the confines of the House Rules Committee. Because it was handled as a rule & not a bill, it isn't subject to a governor's veto. It isn't even voted on by the full House. The meeting was convened in such a way as to not let Minnesotans testify or voice their opinions. For that matter, it wasn't even recorded so we could see what happened. That doesn't sound like democracy to me.
SAINT PAUL ; (August 17, 2007) -- House Republican Leader Marty Seifert (R-Marshall) questioned the priorities of House Democrats today after DFLers doubled their committee budgets.
Seifert's comments came on the heels of the DFL-controlled Rules Committee approving a near 100 percent increase in the House Committee budgets. The original budget increased from $324,000 to $646,000.
"This gross increase in legislative bureaucracy is excessive and unnecessary," said House Republican Leader Marty Seifert. "I am shocked the House Democrats doubled their own budget at a time when families are trying to pay their property taxes and live within their means. We need investments in Minnesota, not investments in the Legislature."
The House Rules Committee also approved a 7.75% pay raise for House employees, retroactive to August 1, 2007. In addition, Democrats approved additional pay increases to staff for 2008.
"I don't know a lot of regular, hard working Minnesotans getting back-to-back pay raises within a year," Seifert said. "When I talk to truckers, waitresses and secretaries, I know that they are not getting these types of raises."
Another concern to Seifert is that House Democrats increased legislators' gas payments for inner district travel. Under the formula, one rural Democrat lawmaker could take home over $1600 each month in district mileage.
"I find it ironic that the people who are trying the hardest to raise the price of gas by increasing gas taxes are the first to meet at the capitol and give themselves protection by raising their gas mileage payments, courtesy of the state treasury" Seifert said.
Seifert said he was very concerned about the timing and notice of the committee hearing. The hearing was held in a conference room without televised capability with inadequate notice to the public and little opportunity for public testimony.
"I think if the average person knew what Democrats were doing with their money, they would be outraged. Unfortunately, the Democrats think this is what voters want. They are absolutely wrong." Seifert said.
This is the same method Sertich used when the House permanent rules were being debated. Many of the GOP amendments were funneled into the House Rules Committee, including an amendment that would've required a floor vote of the House on the per diem increase. That got shoveled into the Rules Committee by Sertich. Sertich's defense for doing it that way: 'It's always been done that way.' Talk about a flimsy rationalization.
This is just the latest episode in the corruption machine known as the House DFL leadership. It's also a time when DFL representatives should be expressing their disapproval with their leadership. Instead, there's been a collective silence. People like Larry Haws & Larry Hosch should be speaking out against this because there isn't a legitimate reason for such secrecy.
Why aren't the House DFL freshmen speaking out against Sertich? Are they willing to indulge Sertich or will they oppose him? It isn't difficult to oppose him on the issues. He's opposed to transparency in government. He doesn't care about the taxpayers. If he did, he wouldn't routinely vote for oppressive tax increases.
It's time that Minnesotans demanded that Sertich be put on a much shorter leash. He's a power hungry tyrant who cares about accumulating power, not about the people he's supposed to serve.
Posted Wednesday, August 22, 2007 1:49 PM
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Changing Course In Iraq
The mantra that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid used all year was that President Bush "needs to change course in Iraq", which he did in January. When he announced his plans on a surge of troops to secure Anbar province and Baghdad, Democrats howled. John Murtha tried crafting a slow bleed strategy. That didn't play well. Now that the surge is working, Democrats are retooling their strategy.
Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions.In other words, they're scrambling. They've been scrambling ever since Harry Reid bragged about killing the Patriot Act. This is the same Harry Reid that declared defeat in Iraq several months ago.
And now the Democrats, along with wavering Republicans, will face an advertising blitz from Bush supporters determined to remain on offense. A new pressure group, Freedom's Watch, will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign today designed to shore up support for Bush's policies before the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, lays out a White House assessment of the war's progress. The first installment of Petraeus's testimony is scheduled to be delivered before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a fact both the administration and congressional Democrats say is simply a scheduling coincidence.
The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare.
Democrats bet the ranch on defeat in Iraq. Now they're getting their comeuppance for being the Defeatist Party. This is a sign of their pure partisanship. A decade ago, men like Sam Nunn, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John Breaux, Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman would've been critical of President Bush's strategy but they would've worked with President Bush to put together a plan to defeat the terrorists. Pelosi's and Reid's Democrats haven't sought victory. They've been defeatists because that's what their Nutroots puppetmasters demanded.
Because they've been defeatists, they haven't tried putting together a viable alternative to President Bush's surge. Instead, they've based their campaign on Bush's failures. That won't work because, like President Bush said in his debate with John Kerry, a laundry list of complaints isn't an agenda.
I repeatedly said last fall that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were the most inept pair of leaders in Congressional history. I'll repeat that in light of their unwillingness to stand up to the idiots of the Nutroots movement. Had they stood their ground, their party's presidential candidates wouldn't have had to pander to them so much. In the end, this will return to haunt them.
Posted Wednesday, August 22, 2007 4:14 PM
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Game, Set, Match???
That's the thought posed by Captain Ed in his post about this article. Here's what's got everyone's tongues wagging:
The leader of Iraq's banned Baath party, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has decided to join efforts by the Iraqi authorities to fight al-Qaeda, one of the party's former top officials, Abu Wisam al-Jashaami, told pan-Arab daily Al Hayat. "Al-Douri has decided to sever ties with al-Qaeda and sign up to the programme of the national resistance, which includes routing Islamist terrorists and opening up dialogue with the Baghdad government and foreign forces," al-Jashaami said.Al-Douri was the King of Clubs in the now infamous deck of cards of Iraq's most wanted. Turning him would be a huge deal because he had been working with AQI and various insurgent groups. As the article points out, his turning happened as a direct result of Gen. Petraeus' success in Anbar and Diyala.
Al-Douri has decided to deal directly with US forces in Iraq, according to al-Jashaami. He figures in the 55-card deck of "most wanted" officials from the former Iraqi regime issued by the US government. In return, for cooperating in the fight against al-Qaeda, al-Douri has asked for guarantees over his men's safety and for an end to Iraqi army attacks on his militias.
Recent weeks have seen a first step in this direction, when Baathist fighters cooperated with Iraqi government forces in hunting down al-Qaeda operatives in the volatile Diyala province and in several districts of the capital, Baghdad.
This is potentially huge on several levels. If Maliki says that this happened as a direct result of Gen. Petraeus' surge, Democrats will be betwixt and between. Here's what Hillary said about President Bush's surge speech:
The President simply has not gotten the message sent loudly and clearly by the American people, that we desperately need a new course. The President has not offered a new direction, instead he will continue to take us down the wrong road, only faster. The President's speech failed to adequately address the political situation in Iraq, rising sectarian violence, mounting strain on our military, growing Iranian influence, and festering divides over how to distribute oil revenues.Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi issued a joint statement that sounded utterly defeatist:
As I have said, as the American people have demanded, and as the facts on the ground require, we need a new course and an end to the current failed policy. I continue to urge a strategy that places pressure on the Iraqi government to resolve the political crisis through phased redeployment of U.S. troops, establishes an Iraqi Oil Trust to end the stalemate over oil, and pursues an aggressive diplomatic strategy including an international conference of the regional parties to further the task of Iraq's stability."
"As many had foreseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results," the two leaders wrote. "The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation. It has not enhanced Americas national security. The unsettling reality is that instances of violence against Iraqis remain high and attacks on US forces have increased. In fact, the last two months of the war were the deadliest to date for US troops."Months ago, Rush said that Democrats weren't just betting on defeat. He said that they "owned defeat." People might not like how the war was waged but they aren't defeatists. They love winners.
This is potentially huge from the perspective that this might be the spark that's needed to end the sectarian fighting and the insurgency. If it's true that al-Douri has flipped allegiances, it also emasculates AQI. Another key thing that must happen is for Maliki to keep his promise of no retribution against al-Douri's militias. If they're brought into the government, then national reconciliation is possible.
Posted Thursday, August 23, 2007 1:05 AM
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Utterly Useless
According to the American Prospect's Paul Waldman, David Petraeus' report is almost useless because Waldman thinks that Gen. Petraeus is part of the Bush administration. to his credit, Waldman stopped short of accusing Gen. Petraeus of being a liar. Here's what he did say:
Without many arguments left in the well, the White House will be hiding behind Petraeus, just as President Bush has been since the general took the job seven months ago. At first the administration didn't want Petraeus to publicly testify about his report, perhaps because it was concerned he might be a little too forthcoming about what is really happening in Iraq. But now the administration seems to have come to its senses, realizing that either Democrats will be cowed into deference by the blinding glare created by all those ribbons and the glittering aura of Petraeus' reputation, or they will question him harshly, at which point they can be accused of hating the troops and their saintly, infallible commander.What a dimwitted statement to say that Gen. Petraeus got picked for this job because he was willing to "support 'the surge'". Gen. Petraeus didn't just support it. He authored it. That's a rather significant difference. It's unfortunate that Mr. Waldman didn't take off his partisan blinders. If he had, he might've noticed the difference. It wasn't exactly difficult to spot.
Don't interpret my sarcasm to mean that I think Gen. Petraeus is cut from the same dishonest cloth as the rest of the Bush administration. But by this time he is, most certainly, part of that administration. There has never been much dispute over the fact that throughout his career he has been a capable and accomplished, even brilliant, officer. But Petraeus was selected for his current job because of his willingness to support "the surge" (even today, saying it gives you that little shot of testosterone, the scent of victory wafting into your nose). And if he has any desire to keep his job, he will be sure to deliver the message the White House wants.
For all the repeated incantations of "Let's wait and see what Gen. Petraeus reports in September," there's little doubt about what he'll say. The report, in whatever form it is finally delivered, will caution that we have a long way to go, that serious problems remain, and that we wish we weren't where we are today. However, it will say we're making important progress, and we need to stay in Iraq for a good long time -- at the bare minimum, until January of 2009, when the boiling cauldron of hatred and misery that is Iraq becomes some other president's problem. The details of the report could vary (contents may settle during shipping, after all), but if you think its ultimate conclusions will be something other than a validation of "the surge" and the Bush administration's larger strategy, you haven't been paying attention.It's unfortunate that Mr. Waldman hasn't been paying attention. In addition to the military progress that was made in Anbar months ago, real progress has been made in Diyala province, too. It isn't just military progress that's been made. Regional reconciliation has been gaining momentum, too.
The progress has been so widespread that Democrats are finding it impossible to argue that the surge isn't working. In fact, they've had to change course on Iraq policy again. That isn't helping voters build confidence in Democrats' ability to run foreign policy.
Barring someone getting a spinal transplant, I don't see that perception to change much between now and November, 2008.
Posted Thursday, August 23, 2007 4:02 AM
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What Priorities?
It seems that Jim Oberstar has finally gotten religion in the aftermath of the I-35W bridge collapse. As Kathy Kersten points out, that wasn't always the case. Here are some of Kathy's particulars:
"If you're not prepared to invest another five cents in bridge reconstruction and road reconstruction, then God help you," he said after the bridge collapse.Ouch. That'll sting a bit. We learn two things from Kathy's column: (a) that Jim Oberstar, like all Democrats faced with a new challenge, proposes a 'cure' by raising taxes and (b) that Jim Oberstar doesn't think about making better use of the money already available when seeking a solution. Let's deal with the second observation first.
Polls suggest that ordinary folks aren't convinced of a divine mandate for higher taxes. Most likely, they're skeptical about how our pols are stewarding current transportation funds.
Oberstar is Exhibit A. He's long been well-positioned to help steer funds toward bridge safety, and has known of the seriousness of the problem since he held hearings on bridge conditions 20 years ago, he says. But he's had other priorities.
For example, on July 25, a week before the bridge collapse, Oberstar issued a press release announcing his latest coup for Minnesota.
He had obtained more than $12 million for his home state in a recently passed House transportation and housing bill. Commuter rail was the big winner, getting $10 million. The Cambridge-Isanti Bike/Walk Trail got $250,000, and the KidsPeace Mesabi Academy in Buhl got $150,000. Only $2 million went for meat-and-potatoes road improvements.
Not a penny was slated for bridge repair.
Rep. Oberstar's actions tell us where his priorities lie. He's represented MN-8 in the House for 30 years. He's accumulated alot of influence in that time. By diverting funds from the Highway Trust Fund to build bike trails, we know what his priorities are. Unfortunately for us, his priorities don't fit our needs. That's unacceptable and we demand better.
I don't even think that longtime legislators think about establishing a priority system until a crisis hits. Even then, I think they don't establish a worthwhile priority list. I blame part of that on their repulsion of things like cost-benefit analyses. Political consideration is put ahead of the people's needs. Getting re-elected is their highest priority.
Legislators like Oberstar don't think of earmarks for low priority items as wasteful spending. They think of them more as symbols of their importance. They view them as part of their legacy. (Robert Byrd is the man with the 'biggest' legacy in the Senate, with half of the public buildings in West Virginia seemingly named after him.)
As for the first point, I've yet to meet a Democrat that doesn't reflexively doesn't think that raising taxes isn't the first option. As I've said before, I'm tired of being thought of as a politician's ATM machine, with an unlimited balance on hand at all times. Last summer, Mike Hatch criticized Tim Pawlenty for not funding the state's priorities, then said that he would fund these things properly without raising taxes. As I said here, I didn't see any reason to believe that he wouldn't instinctively raise taxes. That belief was proven right during this last legislative session, when Democrats went on a tax increasing binge.
In that respect, Jim Oberstar is no different than Mike Hatch or any other DFL legislator. That used to work in the old days but those days have vanished. They've vanished because Al Gore's internet records their voting histories, their voting records. Most importantly, communication between their clients and their office has never been easier. This is a major paradigm shift, one that must be unsettling to oldtimers like Jim Oberstar, David Obey and John Murtha.
Another example of Democrats thinking tax first was provided by Andy this morning:
Out of $3 trillion dollars in the Federal budget, she can't find any money for bridges?Until I'm given proof otherwise, I'll believe that raising taxes is genetic with liberal Democrats. I'm certain that I won't be proven wrong anytime soon.
Nope this morning on FOX9 news from the MN State Fair, she said to raise taxes on people making more than $366,000 and also raise taxes on oil companies.
Posted Thursday, August 23, 2007 9:51 AM
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