Minnesota's Mr. Right Strikes Again

Jason Lewis is known for being "hard" on the GOP for not sticking to their principles. Well today he takes the microscope to his favorite target....the Minnesota DFL.

As is always the case, getting into a bidding war with big-spending liberals ends in defeat for conservatives. Especially when Democrats seem more willing than ever to exploit any calamity, however horrific, for political gain. Whether politicizing the Wellstone memorial, Hurricane Katrina or even the casualties of war, the motto of the majority party in Washington and St. Paul is now best described as "No Tragedy Left Behind."

Indeed, no sooner had Minnesota's Interstate 35W bridge collapsed than our liberal elite starting pointing fingers -- and they've been doing it ever since. Led by the state's twin deacons of demagoguery, U.S. Rep. James Oberstar and state Sen. Steve Murphy, the party of government wasted no time in going public with its shopworn answer to every conceivable catastrophe: more funding and more taxes.

Ten years ago, long before Tim Pawlenty or George W. Bush took office, Minnesota's Office of Legislative Auditor made clear in a report to lawmakers that there was a "backlog of bridges that are classified as having structural deficiencies." How could a bridge found "structurally deficient" by state inspectors as early as 1990 be the fault of Pawlenty or Bush?

The report also found that Minnesota had the fifth-largest road system in the nation and was spending 52 percent more per capita on roads than the national average. Since our total transportation budget (including federal funds) jumped from $1.9 billion in fiscal 2005 to $2.3 billion in fiscal 2006, it's doubtful this has changed much. Moreover, only 25 percent of the state's gasoline and vehicle registration taxes dedicated to the Trunk Highway Fund even reach the Twin Cities area. If Minnesota's highway funding formula accurately reflected lane miles traveled, the congested metro area, the site of last summer's tragedy, would be receiving a far larger share.

Jason then goes on to poke at a few liberal "sacred cows".

So where are the dollars going? To outstate districts like Murphy's, where local highway funding is more about public-works projects and less about transportation policy. No wonder the esteemed senator sponsored a bill last session that would have pushed the gas tax from 20 cents per gallon to more than 40 cents over the next decade.

For his part, Oberstar is no slouch when it comes to pork-barrel projects. When he isn't holding news conferences demanding a 23.4-cent federal gas tax, he's busy at his perch on the House Transportation Committee bringing home the bacon. The 2005 "bridge to nowhere" highway bill (one of the reasons the GOP lost control of Congress in '06) was loaded with $24 billion of earmarks, including some $500 million for Minnesota. Oberstar's office touted his achievement in allocating $12 million for the Eighth District, some $10 million of which was for non-road uses, including pedestrian trails and bicycle paths, not to mention mass-transit centers in that metropolis known as Duluth.

In fact, federal and state governments have diverted billions of dollars to a number of mass-transit schemes that make about as much sense in the sprawling Midwest as a freeway through Central Park. Since the Surface Transportation Act of 1982, Congress has dedicated 20 percent of each increase in the federal gas tax to the Mass Transit Account -- the effect of which resulted in $52 billion coming out of roads and bridges in the 2005 bill.

Last fall, Minnesota voters reluctantly backed a constitutional amendment dedicating the 6.5 percent motor-vehicle excise tax to "transportation." They should have read the fine print, which states that not more than 60 percent of the proceeds can be spent on highways and that at least 40 percent must be used for public transit. This means that all of the tax could conceivably be devoted to costly light-rail lines.

Such as the three-quarter-billion-dollar Hiawatha Line. Touted for its ridership success, it not only has failed to put a dent in traffic congestion, but already is running annual deficits (expenses less fares) of $10 million as far as the eye can see. The state is now the largest funding source for Metro Transit, spending $200 million annually for 2.8 percent of Minnesota commuters.

Just a few days before the spectacular bridge failure, Twin Cities transit advocates were putting the best spin on increased cost projections for the new Central Corridor line running between downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis. It seems that internal memos suggested the Washington Avenue bridge would not be strong enough for the new trains. Now, at the insistence of the city of Minneapolis, the new I-35W bridge will include capacity for -- you guessed it -- a light-rail line.

In addition to raising the gas tax, transit advocates have been pushing hard for a metrowide sales-tax increase to fund the Central Corridor line, one of the reasons Pawlenty vetoed this year's pork-laden transportation bill. Given all of the so-called "transportation" money going for non-road and -bridge uses, you'd think Oberstar and Murphy might be a bit embarrassed calling for significant increases in the gas tax.

Not a chance.

New taxes are not the answer. Reasonable, responsible priorities are. When are our representatives going to wake up to that fact?

This is one of many reasons why Jason is still called "Minnesota's Mister Right". You may not like his bombastic approach, but his rhetoric is based in cold hard facts....facts that our friends on the left would have you forget.