Is John McCain a rare Republican?
Is it possible that John McCain can feel shame?
Senator John McCain, R-Arizona, said Congress shares blame for problems with the nation’s bridges and roads. “ We passed a $50 billion transportation bill that had $2 billion in pork barrel earmarked projects, “ he said, “ $233 million for a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, to an island with 50 people on it. Not one dime in those pork barrel projects was for inspection or repair of bridges.” – CNN
If that is an expression of genuine shame, he would be a very rare Republican indeed.
Indeed. Because we all know the Democrats don’t believe in pork at all…..oh wait….they build their ENTIRE VOTING base on pork….
Still waiting for the shame from that camp..
He said CONGRESS should accept some of the blame. And he’s right. CONGRESS. Not one political party. CONGRESS.
It’s a start.
Earmarks should go away, period. They are a sad part of Washington DC.
Legalized corruption.
They also haven’t worried about making sure the Highway Trust Fund is adequately funded since 1993, either. Earmarks are crazy but letting the mechanism that helps to fund Interstate maintenance dry on the vine is more insidious.
How are those levies in New Orleans these days, Republicans?
This is what you get when you hire people who despise government to run it! So I guess it’s everyone’s fault, somewhat….
“How are those levies in New Orleans these days, Republicans?”
How out of touch are you? The finding have been that the local government (i.e. DEMOCRATS like Nagin and his predecessors) chose the crappy contractors and the substandard materials. They also, did not pony up their share of the costs for maintenance. So…again…that would be the DEMOCRATS that screwed that one up my friend.
Nagin for President!!!!
Heck of a job there, Chrissy….
http://www.alternet.org/story/24871/
“Heck of a job there, Chrissy….”
Sorry Crackers this is yet another area that I know from whence I speak. My wife was with the Army Corps during Katrina. The breaches were a combination of poor constuction (based on local contract issues) and also simply the fact the hurricaine was a little bigger than the levees were designed to protect against.
While there may be some truth to war costs curtailing the budget somewhat, what was blatantly left out of those articles is that the Army Corps works on a shared costs basis with most projects. They pony up a percentage and the local government the rest (generally 60/40). While perhaps they were falling a little short of their 60%, N.O. was woefully short on their 40. There were times when the corps could not proceed with maintenance or construction because they are not permitted to do so with out the locals putting up.
Putting up an article from a left wing spin site is hardly an argument. I suspect Salon.com would have been less biased.
I didn’t know reality is spin. Oh well…I guess the Federal Gov’t has no responsibility for securing and protecting one of our largest ports and the massive confluence of oil pipelines in the country. And I guess they bear no culpability after knowing for years that these vital interests were in real danger, based on models and research, and knowing for certain that the one of the poorest (and yes, historically corrupt) states could not handle such an enormous project on its own.
Now that’s leadership!
And substituting wingnut radio spin for real engineering data is still just wingnut radio spin.
This is a decent summary of the last of the three major engineering studies of what happened to these levees. All of these reports are pretty clear that the USACE committed some pretty spectacular engineering blunders, including not providing adequate QC of construction contractors. And make no mistake — engineers can be sued for malpractice and/or lose their licenses to practice over these kinds of mistakes.
The problem was not a hurricane bigger than the system should handle and nor was overtopping the problem. At base here, was that real safety was never as big a priority as real Quality Control, cost-cutting or even construction speed.
And some ex-USACE officials would disagree on the funding issue.