McCain raps Congress for bridge collapse [and rips Alaska]

AP ^ | August 04, 2007 | By MIKE GLOVER

[RightWhale]

safer than spending $233 million of your tax dollars on a bridge in Alaska

Ah. But they didn't. They are spending it in Minnesota on a bridge that collapsed. FedGov is going to spend $ trillions on infrastructure, as soon as they finish spending the $200 billion to rebuild New Orleans.

[Rumplemeyer]

Our country would be much better served if our attention was on rebuilding the infer-structure that created this great country instead of funding every half-wit’s social engineering wet dream.

Civil Engineering, NOT social engineering, made America the greatest economic engine in the history of man.

We need to frame the argument.

[org.whodat]

McCain spoke during a town hall-style meeting with activists, saying he was angered not just by Congress wasting money on special projects, but also by it approving reform packages he labeled a sham.

I thought just about anybody that was a setting senator could block just about anything they want, due to the unwritten good old boys rule, so where was the sham senator?

[television is just wrong]

we put too much emphasis on supporting the dead weight in this country.
end welfare, and move on. Have the money for the things that really count.

[econjack]

The line item veto would fix a lot more things than just bridges.

[vpintheak]

John, you and your fellow professional politicians are a joke. You are the reason America is not the leader of the world as in the past. You all are the reason we will be a socialist nanny state at best in the near future.

[Loyal Buckeye]

Newt: How about the federal money spent on the Big Dig? Billions and billions diverted from other projects to pay for it.

[GailA]

It's not just federal pork but state pork too...Tennessee spent $21,000+ for carpet for the Dem Speaker of the House's office.

Who controled the purse strings in 1989?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2D6143BF935A35755C0A966958260 Tennessee Is Faulted In Collapse of Bridge

Published: June 6, 1990

The National Transportation Safety Board said today that a shifting river channel caused the highway bridge collapse that killed eight motorists in Tennessee last year but that state officials should have corrected the problems with the bridge a decade ago.

The board, expressing concern about thousands of other bridges throughout the country, also cited the 54-year-old Tennessee structure's simple design as a contributing factor in its collapse on April 1, 1989. The bridge carried the two northbound lanes of U.S. 51 over the Hatchie River, 45 miles north of Memphis.

[Duke Nukum]

Once again, McCain behaves like a liberal, making political hay by assessing blame for a disaster whose cause has yet to be determined. What a maroon!

You know this may be true. I'm no McCain fan but I'm thinking maybe, just maybe he's telling the Democratics in Congress who are already in Blame Bush mode that they, Congress, having the power of the purse, would have more responsibility then the executive branch.

I don't really want to defend him but if Democratics are going to be slinging blame at Bush already, then maybe it is good to remind them that they actually appropriate the money that would be used for inspections and such.

[razorback-bert]

They have had problems in the Hatchie bottoms for years, and never done anything.