Countdown to the Blame Game III

Jazz was certainly proven correct yesterday when he predicted a blame game. He has an excellent followup this morning. As I said in my follow up yesterday:

The infrastructure has been deteriorating for 30 years or more. The reason is not the invasion and occupation of Iraq or even George W. Bush. It really started in 1978 - remember proposition 13 in California? It was the grand daddy of the many "no more taxes" initiatives that have made it next to impossible for states and municipalities to even keep up with inflation.

Is that why the I35 bridge collapsed? We won't know until we know why the bridge collapsed. But Ed Morrissey says it Doesn't Sound Like A Funding Issue. This is just as premature and simplistic as blaming the collapse on the Iraq war. Ed seems to be blaming the engineers. Those engineers have to make calls based on how much money is available. There may have been enough money to fix the bridge but that would have been money that then would not have been used to improve a road or repair another bridge. In other words the engineers are constrained by the need to prioritize based on the funds available. They have to make judgement calls and judgement is never 100% correct. The more funds available for infrastructure repair the fewer judgment calls have to be made. Nick Coleman has some local examples of why the infrastructure is collapsing and occasionally killing people.

For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It's been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase - the first in 20 years - last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government.

I'm not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It is general.

Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics.

And speaking of priorities Coleman gives us this example.

How ironic is it that tonight's scheduled groundbreaking for a new Twins ballpark has been postponed? Even the stadium barkers realize it is in poor taste to celebrate the spending of half a billion on ballparks when your bridges are falling down. Perhaps this is a sign of shame. If so, it is welcome. Shame is overdue.

Countdown to the Blame Game II

As Jazz reported this morning the I35 Bridge collapse blame game has begun. ABC's blog, Political Radar, has some examples. The infrastructure of the United States is collapsing and that is much more likely to bring the country down than an attack from al-Qaeda. There is some blame but it's not where anyone is looking. The infrastructure has been deteriorating for 30 years or more. The reason is not the invasion and occupation of Iraq or even George W. Bush. It really started in 1978 - remember proposition 13 in California? It was the grand daddy of the many "no more taxes" initiatives that have made it next to impossible for states and municipalities to even keep up with inflation. In many if not most states the gas tax collected is the same dollar amount it was when gasoline was 35 cents a gallon. As much as 25% of the money allocated by congress for roads goes unspent because the states can't come up with the matching funds. As population has grown the states have been forced to spend what money they have to build new roads with little left over to fix existing roads or bridges. Digby gets it as she usually does.

Governments all over the country have been robbing Peter to pay Paul, shifting money to immediate needs like health care and child welfare and hoping against hope that the roads and bridges and buildings built during the new deal era held up. "No New Taxes" has been the rallying cry for decades now, but nobody ever said how we were supposed to pay for the things we all take for granted. And, of course,when things like this happen, the wingers blame the government and everyone decries taxes even more.

I have to wonder if any Republicans were on that bridge last night. If there were, they must have realized that sometimes we really are all in it together.

The assorted spawn of prop 13 have made it next to impossible to increase taxes even when a majority wants to by requiring super majorities to raise taxes. In my own state of Oregon it's easier for the legislature to amend the constitution than raise taxes. The goal of Grover Norquist and his band of crusaders was to strangle the government. They have been successful on the state and local level. The result - bridges that fall down and people dying.

I-35W Bridge Collapse - Countdown to the Blame Game

The MSM and blog coverage continues to pour in on the bridge collapse. Out here in the Northeast, I have already witnessed real tears from someone feeling the pain of total strangers many hundreds of miles away. The event itself is a very real tragedy. Last night and this morning we shall see the time of heroes. Following any such disaster comes a brief window when America always shines and hardship bring out the very best in people. Rescue efforts, recovery, comfort and aid... these are already on display.

What comes next, unfortunately, will be all too predictable. There can no longer be any such thing as a tragic accident in our country. We apparently no longer have the ability to witness such a horrific event, learn from it, and move on to simply do things better and try to reduce the chances of similar, future horrors. A sacrifice will be demanded, initially, and it shall be found. Inevitably the first goat led to the alter will turn out to be some low to mid-level functionary from the City Engineering department or something similar. This person will invariably turn out to be a regular chump who worked for the department for the last dozen years, gets up every morning, kisses his wife goodbye, wonders how he's going to pay for his son's college tuition and his daughter's wedding in the same year, and trudged off to work at the city offices. This disaster will spin his world upside down. He'll be struggling to coordinate disaster management, pondering where the money will come from to rebuild, and then... the phone rings. And rings. CNN is on the line wanting to know if he feels personally responsible. An attorney for the newly formed "Victims of Atrocious Government Abuse and Neglect" will politely inform him that they need an appointment to discuss the impending court actions.

And the lawsuits will begin. The functionary above won't be the real target, of course. He doesn't have deep pockets. He'll probably take some sort of beating and lose his job, but the real target will be the government because everyone from the families of the actual victims to the people who were traumatized by driving past will be there with their hands out, confident that somebody owes them several million dollars and a summer home in the islands.

But that's not the only blame to be laid... not by a long shot. Pundits, bloggers and analysts (all with an ax to grind) will be climbing on board before you can blink twice. Who is really to blame for this? What forces were at work, unseen, while we slept unaware? Were there terrorists involved? Was anyone from CAIR (a favorite target of the right wing in the Midwest) anywhere near the bridge recently? How about the responsible parties from our own government? Was there some transportation authority person left over from the Clinton administration (Clinton!) responsible for the inspections of this bridge? Did Democrats in the state government once vote against more funds for infrastructure maintenance and repair?

And don't think the Left won't get in on the act. Did Bush appoint somebody to FEMA in that territory who will botch the recovery effort? Is the TA authority a Bush appointee? Would the bridge not have collapsed if the damned Republicans hadn't squashed our efforts to slow global warming and the CO2 in the atmosphere causing acid rain which ate into the bridge's supports?

When I first began pondering what to write in this article I had assumed that it would be at least a few days before the Blame Game kicked into gear. Sadly, I was off by a wide margin. It began within hours of the first slabs of concrete splashing into Old Muddy. As Ron pointed out earlier, Mark Fuhrman already wants to start investigating the construction crew for potential terrorists. Capt. Ed predicts a milder response, but says that if there were warnings in previous inspection reports, "expect Minnesotans to demand some housecleaning." And from the left we've already got someone insisting the bridge wouldn't have collapsed if we hadn't invaded Iraq.

Stand by for the lawsuits and finger pointing. Does our infrastructure require constant maintenance and repair? Obviously. Should we spend more time and money on it? Undoubtedly. But such things aren't politically flashy and cost money. Sadly a tragedy like this is probably what's required to get both parties in line to put more effort into this. But the soon to come scapegoating isn't going to change anything.

Update (from Ron)
While Jazz is correct that of the inevitable blame game will do nothing to address the problem it should be pointed out that the Faithful Progressive was only pointing out the infrastructure collapse is being ignored while we pump billions of dollars into the bottomless pit known as Iraq.

Over the past 10 years, there has been an average of one bridge failure in the U.S. every week. Instead of addressing our own infrastructure and shoring up homeland security with increased inspections at our ports etc etc, billions of dollars have been flat-out freakin' wasted in Iraq. Does anyone else see a link between these two stories?

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