Politicians the real threat to nation's bridges

As Published - San Antonio Express
by Terri Hall

Let's face it: We live in a quick-fix world.

Rather than thinking long term and genuinely planning for the nation's present and future, politicians have become an extension of the 24/7 sound-bite media and short-term gain addicts on Wall Street.

Those against the push to privatize and toll our freeways as a quick fix for America's aging infrastructure see the Minnesota bridge tragedy as a transportation wake-up call.

It's criminal for politicians in Congress to have passed a highway bill in 2005 that funded a $223 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska instead of retrofitting that Minneapolis-St. Paul bridge, located on heavily traveled Interstate 35. We have seriously misplaced priorities in this country, pointing to politicians who are derelict in their duties.

The 2005 federal highway bill had 6,000 earmarks for frivolous congressional pet projects pilfered from dedicated gas tax revenues at a time when the Bush administration was pushing the privatization and tolling of our highways, saying new toll taxes were necessary to address congestion and the aging infrastructure because of a shortfall in revenues.

By design, they want to double-tax us by tolling the traveling public to plug their own leaky boat.

Read the rest of it - HERE.