California Conservative

Sunday, I wrote that the Wall Street Journal had taken Jim Oberstar to the woodshed for a well-deserved spanking. It seems that another newspaper chastises Oberstar for his fiscal mismanagement.

Rep. Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, cast his proposed tax increase as a moderate request that would funnel about $8 billion per year into a fund that would be dedicated exclusively to bridge and highway repairs. (Now where have we heard that kind of assurance before? Social Security, anyone?)

“If you’re not prepared to invest another five cents in bridge reconstruction and road reconstruction, then God help you,” Rep. Oberstar told the Rochester Post-Bulletin.

Nothing like shaming the masses to convince them cough up more of their hard-earned cash.

Add Rep. Oberstar’s plan to about a half-dozen other pending Democratic proposals that involve taking more money out of your pocket.

But Rep. Oberstar and his ilk can’t avoid the most obvious question, one that should be raised anytime a subordinate asks his boss to bolster his expense account: What are you doing with the rest of your money?

Rep. Oberstar would have Americans believe there isn’t a spare nickel in all of Washington. As the watchdogs at Citizens Against Government Waste so dutifully point out, Congress has spent more than $69 billion on frivolous pork over the past three years alone. The 2005 highway bill, which was larded up with low-priority projects including Alaska’s “Bridges to Nowhere,” already allocates $2 billion per year for bridge repairs.

Rep. Oberstar himself partook in the 2005 porkfest, scoring $14.6 million for his Duluth-area constituents, primarily to extend the nation’s longest paved recreation trail.

Now Rep. Oberstar wants all of Congress to go cold-turkey on earmarks. He assures us that despite the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on earmarks and low-priority road projects over the years, the madness will finally stop if only his 5-cent per gallon gasoline tax increase is passed.

“Yes,” taxpayers will reply. “Just as the 1986 Immigration Reform & Control Act was the absolute last amnesty Congress would ever award to illegals.”

In other words, Oberstar has a major credibility problem because he, like others, have put pet projects ahead of public safety. This isn’t to imply that Jim Oberstar wanted bridges to collapse or even that he was indifferent to it. It’s just that his priorities were more attuned to ‘re-election projects’.

What I’ve been noticing is that people are demanding that government starts putting a higher priority on bridge and road repair projects than on frivolous things like bridges to nowhere, bike trails and LRT. That doesn’t bode well for politicians who’ve grown addicted to pork for their re-elections.

That’s why I found Jane Ranum’s comments on Friday night’s Almanac so hilarious. Here’s two reminders of what she said:

Ranum: The question now is whether the Governor will be listening to that small group of people who just want to focus on roads and bridges or if he’ll be listening to the vast majority of people who will want a balanced package.
——————–
Ranum: I think right now that the governor is supposedly at 60 percent in the polls…
Krinkie: Democrats are at 38 percent…
Ranum: If you look at the polls however, you’ll see that 53 percent of independents have joined in that. The Governor has to be careful and not be swayed too much by the conservative right or he might wind up with something like George Bush.

Ms. Ranum’s inference that Gov. Pawlenty is in danger of plummeting to President Bush levels is downright silly. The truth is that public opinion in Minnesota, like much of the nation, is tipping in the opposite direction. It’s heading in the direction of setting priorities rather than higher taxes. This poll bears that out.

Technorati Tags: James Oberstar, Don Young, Bridge To Nowhere, LRT, Public Safety, Bridges

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Domestic Policies, Election 2008, Liberals, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.