Trying to make the crap sandwich taste better
On the way to the VA yesterday, I saw this and nearly ran off the road. The camera in my phone didn't do it justice, so I had to go back today with a decent camera. This is from Interstate 35 near Faribault, just before a long line of orange road construction barrels.
Yes, that's right, stimuless has come to Minnesota.
Considering the loathing most Minnesotans feel for road construction season, I think this PR attempt may backfire.
But wait! This isn't just bad advertising, it's also partly false. There are two projects taking place on this 4 mile stretch of I-35. The first project is renovations on 10 bridges that is being funded by the normal transportation bill. The second project is resurfacing and a median guardrail that is using stimuless funds.
The cost of the bridge repair is about 3 million dollars, while the cost of the two projects together will be just over 8 million dollars. So VP Biden, the overseer of the allocation of the stimuless money, is spending 5 million dollars on a road construction project but taking credit for the whole 8 million dollar project.
But wait! The president and vice president promised me accountability and transparency for this money. So I'm sure that if I surf over to recovery.gov (it's listed on the sign above, although there's no way to read it while driving at 70mph) I can get more information about this road construction project and where the money came from, right? Wrong.
Recovery.gov's balance sheet for Minnesota not only doesn't show this construction project, it doesn't show any federal stimuless money for road construction in Minnesota. Although it does tell me that there has been $5,561,420 dollars earmarked for 'non-entitlement grants in Hawaii.' Let me say that again. Recovery.gov says it has allocated five and a half million dollars to the state of Minnesota for low income housing in Hawaii. Unless this means that there are rent control condos on the beach in Honolulu specifically set aside for Minnesota residents, we are getting screwed on this money.
Besides wondering how much the MN Department of Transportation spent on these signs (there was one for the northbound lanes and one for the southbound), I have to wonder about the concept of spending my tax dollars on a propaganda message designed to make me feel better about the spending of my tax dollars.
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