Last Friday, City Pages Blotter blogger Ben Johnson reported in Report: Minnesota Has More Than 800 Bridges in Urgent Need of Repair:
. . . Transportation for America's annual report on bridge safety has all sorts of alarming numbers to worry about.
. . .So what is the state legislature doing about it?
The Republican-led House passed a $7 billion dollar bill that doesn't raise taxes. Instead, it redirects taxes collected on auto partsand leased and rental cars to come up with a big chunk of the funds.
The DFL-led Senate and Gov. Mark Dayton have a package worth about $11 billion that relies on raising the gas tax 16 cents per gallon to a total of 45 cents per gallon.
The gas tax -- a steady, long-term fix that both businesses and labor support -- will be one of the biggest political fights left as the Legislature enters its last two weeks.
Bluestem sees the House solution as a temporary means to raise some cash, but which doesn't get at a long term approach to replace all those bridges.
In House transportation bill clears first hurdle, Minnesota Public Radio's Catherine Richert wrote:
Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL- Minneapolis, said that the Republican-backed bill relies too much on moving money from one pot to another.
“It’s a house of cards because we are shifting money from existing state expenses,” said Hornstein. “We’re shifting money from educating our kids, from nursing homes, from environmental protection and we’re taking it to transportation.”
The House bill also provides much less for mass transit than the governor’s plan, which would boost the sales tax in the metro area to fund transit projects.
Here's hoping that the DFL Senate and Governor Dayton shuffle the deck and Daudt draws the losing hand--and the game ends there. Time for Minnesotans to understand that fixing bridges and roads is just that--not a penny-ante game.
As a Kandiyohi County commissioner memorably said in March, we're starving our roads and bridges until the cows come home and drop dead.
Photo: As a Kandiyohi County commissioner said in March, we're starving our roads and bridges until the cows come home and drop dead.
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