Residual Forces

Gary at Let Freedom Ring has the goods on a St. Cloud Times Editorial that is must read, plus a great recap of local center right bloggers’ reactions and advice for the lack of need for a special session.

Also, let’s NOT forget that once Pawlenty opens the door for Legislators, HE HAS NO CONTROL OF THEM. I hope he has learned that the DFL leaders in the Minnesota Legislature have burned him before. Don’t do it Tim.

And, of course the social engineers, Minneapolis Mayor Rybak and U of M are already complaining about the Federal funds that will bail us out on the bridge rebuilding.

The new bridge’s warp-speed construction schedule has Rybak saying he would be willing to stomach a few extra months of traffic congestion to build the best bridge.

Yep. DFLer Rybak is willing to make YOU suffer for HIS trains.

Rybak’s chief of staff, Tina Smith, fired off a letter Monday to Bob Schroeder, Pawlenty’s point person on bridge rebuilding. “The mayor wants to be clear that our goal is to ensure that future options for LRT [light-rail transit] in the corridor and over the bridge are protected.”

And then there’s the U of M’s addiction to public money for their own aesthetics.

Judith Martin, director of the urban studies program at the University of Minnesota, said anybody hoping for something grand and fancy should rein in their expectations. Federal highway bridges tend to be “extremely utilitarian” with more attention paid to load bearing ability than design. “Think about all the interstate bridges in the Twin Cities. Are any of them memorable?” she asked.

Yep, we may as well throw down a few hundred million more to make sure the U of M gets its warm fuzzy feeling when they look out their window. Besides, we’re not paying for it……

After it is all said and done, we have to be glad that there are rules to prevent the social engineers and squishies on the right from wasting taxpayer money on boondoggles.

But federal and state officials said the $250 million in federal emergency funding can be used to replace what was there — a highway bridge.

The whole Strib article is a must read. You get to see sensibility vs. the socially insane. We need to replace that bridge as fast as possible, and appeasing the social engineers who want to dictate how you live your lives, oh and raise your taxes, just because, will bankrupt us.

We don’t need a special session. And it would take up to 2 years to even see if there is a need for light rail along the 35W corridor. Do you want to wait 2 years to rebuild 35? Or do you want to throw it in there, and then realize you just wasted millions and millions on the LRT upgrade that is unneeded?

Got it?