Conservatives are much in favor of a system of roads for reasons noted previously. However, we do have some more gripes which we shall continue to itemize.
Something is seriously wrong when lobbyists are allowed to line up their own transportation projects with the House and Senate. Engineering and surveying firms such as Bonestroo, Short Elliot Hendrickson, TKDA, bridge construction companies such as Lunda, road contractors such as Hardrives and Midwest Asphalt, and cities such as Minneapolis, St. Michael, and Ramsey County and Beltrami County all lobbied for the T bill.
The taxpayers do not stand a chance when all these special interests stand in the bread line to lobby for projects to ensure their bread basket is filled. These are hungry, greedy porkers, making sure the public trough gets filled to overflowing to serve their own ends. They have figured out the system and the taxpayers get fleeced. Who lobbies for the taxpayers?
How many legislators can resist pleasing these lobbyists in their district? Each time a legislator agrees, it is easier the next time until that person can be depended upon to keep filling the trough. And then the voters reelect those legislators because they "bring home the bacon," while failing to recognize they are working to keep other people making big bucks. Strip the pork out of this mess and we will have more transportation projects for the same money. Or we will have more money left over.
The I-35 bridge that collapsed cost $5,269,002 back in 1967. The replacement bridge will cost $234,000,000 plus a potential bonus. Recognizing that the new bridge is larger than the old bridge, yet it is 45 times more money in a mere 41 years. The cost of anything publicly funded far outpaces the cost of goods and services that working stiffs buy in the private sector. Government and many companies in the private sector that do projects for the government have hijacked the system and hold the little people hostage. We have become serfs.
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