Thursday, August 2, 2007

Elections Have Consequences

May 2005

Less than 24 hours after a 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase was endorsed by the DFL-controlled Senate, Gov. Tim Pawlenty uncapped his pen and made good on his promise to veto the package. The governor's actions touched off a round of recriminations over transportation policy and the larger budget debate being waged in the final days of the 2005 legislative session.


May 2007

Gov. Tim Pawlenty didn't wait long to veto a nickel-a-gallon gas tax increase. Less than 24 hours after the Minnesota Legislature sent him a transportation bill, Pawlenty struck it down Tuesday.

The Republican governor said a higher gas tax would be "untimely and misguided."

"I am disappointed that the conference committee did not adopt my transportation proposal and once again overreached," Pawlenty said in a veto letter to legislators. "This type of overreaching has resulted in a transportation funding stalemate at the Capitol for too many years."

August 2007

Rescue workers are searching for the dozens of people still missing — estimates range from 20 up to as many as 65 — in the wreckage of a highway bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River Wednesday evening in Minneapolis.






8 comments:

Adorable Girlfriend said...

I have to admit that my first thought when I saw the bridge was: Is Snag alright? I hope his family is OK. Meanwhile, my Aunt and Uncle live in MN and take the bridge to work each day.

I guess I heart my blogger peeps more than family sometimes.

And y'all thought AG had no heart.

My heart goes out to all the families recovering from this terrible tragedy.

Anonymous said...

He did this in 2007? Did he not, like, notice that the USA lost most of a city by this sort of thinking? Sheesh.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Republicans don't give a shit about stuff like this, as long as they can keep their gated suburbs, their huge SUVs running on cheap gas, and their precious tax cuts.

Meanwhile, America rots from the inside out, and from the head down.

The Republican convention is in Minneapolis next year. Make 'em remember this. Make 'em OWN it.

And have that Grover Norquist quote, you know the one, tattooed on their foreheads every one.

Greedy SOBs.

Anonymous said...

BP is the Abbie Hoffman of the 2008 election.

Rock on, BP!!!!

Anonymous said...

BP- I saw a quote where some Republican said this would give Democrats an excuse to spend more money. I don't know about you, but I don't think this bridge cared who it was falling on... the GOP or Dems. Decaying infrastructure appears to be non-partisan.

Chuckles said...

You could insist to a Republican that playing Russian roulette with an automatic weapon is a bad idea, but they will try anyway.

Snag said...

For a long time there's been a rot inside our country's infrastructure. And not just the physical one. A war based on lies, an economy increasingly designed to preserve power, and the back of the society's hand to those who need help.

Bastards.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Thanks AG. Steal This Blog.

I saw a quote where some Republican said this would give Democrats an excuse to spend more money.

uh-huh. Because when bridges and other infrastructure fails because it wasn't maintained properly for lack of funds, refusing to spend money to fix or repair is some kind of rational solution?!!? wtf?

Yeah, it's that decaying infrastructure, like reality and science, has a liberal bias.

They really have lost touch with reality.