Tuesday, August 7, 2007

"Build the Bridge"

Much has been written, and rightfully so, on the collapse of the I-35W bridge just a week ago tomorrow.

It has been a sad time for Minnesotans and will ultimately lead to a public policy debate as to where transportation (and more specifically roads and bridges) should be on the priority list for state government expenditures. I happen to believe that building and maintaining our road and bridge infrastructure is one of the most basic functions of state government.

We still live within a Federalist system, and within the state we are best served with that Federalist equivalent. Let the Feds defend our boarders, keep us safe and fight our wars. The State can keep up with the roads, and play a role in education and a few other issues, locals can be most effective in the education realm, and let families, communities and places of worship handle the compassion and charity.

Now, however, we need to build this bridge and make sure others are safe for the traveling public.

We are blessed to have a leader like Tim Pawlenty who is already showing bold leadership and not allowing people to say this thing can't be reconstructed quickly and safety to recreate this critical Minneapolis artery.

The Mesabi Daily News has a great piece today entitled
Yes, cut the federal red tape; it's an emergency. (click here for the entire article)

Gov. Tim Pawlenty wants Minnesota’s members of Congress to get action to help cut through federal red tape as the state moves ahead in recovery and reconstruction efforts following the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

By all means, let’s get at it.

The governor specifically asks the Minnesota congressional delegation to “craft federal legislation that would designate authority to the United States Secretary of Transportation or other proper individuals the ability to expedite, waive, or relax certain regulations, permitting and other requirements that can properly and safely be set aside to allow us to recover more promptly from the emergency,” he said in part in a letter to the state’s members of Congress. (Excerpted from Article)


This governor has consistently defined bold leadership during his tenure in office. We applaud the governor as he steps up to this challenge, and appreciate his initiative to cut through state and federal red-tape to get this bridge built and get traffic moving again.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How are those No New Taxes working for ya now? How's that deferred maintenance working for Molnau? Or is she too busy tossing beer kegs to care?

Anonymous said...

Too bad the Democrats have mis-spent billions on damaging social programs instead of spending it on roads and bridges. It proves once again that it's dangerous to elect Democrast.

Anonymous said...

Yes. My question to the first poster is: How's that Great Society working for ya?