Rewarding Excellence
August 1, 2007 is a day that many Minneapolitans will never forget. For it was at 6:01pm on August 1 2007, in the height of rush hour, that the unthinkable happened...the Interstate 35 Bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed. It was at once both a tragedy and a triumph. A tragedy in that 13 people died and another 145 were injured but it was a triumph watching the residents of this fair city put their own lives on the line to rescue their follow Minnesotans. I will never forget the horror of watching a school bus full of kids coming back from a field trip braced up against a burning bakery truck and rejoicing as I watched the last of thos kids being pulled from the bus to safety. The Wikipedia entry about the bridge collapse has footage from a nearby security camera that shows the bridge coming down. For my Utah readers, the Star Tribune has a slideshow of photos taken in hours after the collapse - documenting the rescue effort.
Before the debris had barely settled the political accusations started flying. Former Ventura Administration Transportation Commissioner Elwyn Tinklenberg was on Minnesota Public Radio LESS THAN 30 MINUTES AFTER THE BRIDGE WENT DOWN and was blaming the current governor for the bridge collapse - never mind the FACT that Mr. Tinklenberg had the opportunity to shore up the bridge some 8 years earlier.
During the 2008 campaign, the DFL campaigned on fixing the states failing infrastructure. However as we have seen in the last two legislative sessions, the DFL's idea of "fixing infrastructure" does not include fixing roads and bridges as much as it includes fixing the infrastructure of the DFL's core constituencies (trial lawyers, teachers unions, government employees etc). One of the promises of the "stimulus" bill was that it would go toward road construction projects. What did the Minnesota Legislature do with Minnesota's portion of the stimulus bill? They used it to to cover their collective behinds and applied toward reducing the deficit! Not that they got INTO the deficit spending on the deficit....oh no it all went toward green roofs and garbage burners and mulit-million dollar library renovations and carbon footprint awareness campaigns.
Politicians are really good at saying whatever they think will get them elected. We have seen this with the DFL incumbents for the last 8 years. Isn't it time that we rewarded them appropriately?
Cross posted at Ladies Logic where your comments are welcome.
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