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May 2, 2008 8:21 am US/Central
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In The Know: McCain's Right About The Bacon
(WCCO)
Sen. John McCain said the Interstate 35W bridge might not have collapsed if his fellow congressmen hadn't been so intent on pork-barrel politics for their own districts. Gov. Tim Pawlenty, McCain's campaign co-chair, said let's wait for the investigators' findings. Don Shelby said John McCain has been saying this for a long time.
Way back in September, McCain was linking the collapse to individual members of Congress' pet projects. The Alaska Bridge to Nowhere was in the news, a bridge longer than the Golden Gate and higher than the Brooklyn Bridge to an island with 76 people at a public cost of $378 million.
The plan has been scrapped, but Alaska will still get the money. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska threw a hissy-fit on the floor of the Senate and said he'd quit Washington, if the money wasn't forthcoming.
Right now, there is no evidence that more money would have kept the bridge from collapsing, but it does make one long for the days of Wisconsin's Sen. William Proxmire who loved to embarrass the government when it spent money on pet projects for silly things with his Golden Fleece Award, like the replica of the Great Wall of China for Bedford, Ind., or the $100 million for projects in Iraq that no one can account for.
McCain may be wrong about the bridge. He's not wrong about the bacon.
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