Opinion: How quickly McCain forgets
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
One year ago today, when the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed during the evening rush-hour commute and killed 13 people, the disaster sparked a furious national debate about the crumbling state of our infrastructure. So quickly are such catastrophes forgotten that a major-party presidential candidate can now propose eliminating the tax that pays for bridge repair, and few bat an eyelash.
About a quarter of the public road bridges in the United States are considered functionally obsolete or structurally deficient, according to the American Assn. of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Fixing them would cost roughly $140 billion, but even a modest House bill to provide $1 billion for repair of federal bridges faces a veto threat from President Bush.
The money for things like road and bridge repairs comes from the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993 and doesn’t adjust for inflation. With high gas prices prompting Americans to drive less, gas-tax revenues are dropping. This situation will get even worse if John McCain has his way. In one of this campaign season’s more revolting pander-fests, McCain this spring proposed eliminating the federal gas tax for the summer. That would cost the government up to $9 billion that would otherwise go to preventing another disaster like the I-35W bridge collapse.
Weird, but it seems like we’ve been here before; weren’t people screaming that New Orleans needed more money for levee repair, just before a great American city was flushed away like yesterday’s sanitary napkin? How many more people have to die before Washington gets serious about transportation infrastructure?
* Photo by Jim Gehrz / Associated Press