Minn Bridge problems Bush fault, no, Clinton! no, Bush!

Ding! Ding! Ding!  NONE OF THE ABOVE is the right answer.

It took almost no time for the clueless one to come out with an article blaming the Minnesota bridge collapse disaster primarily on the Bush administration.  I don't even have to have read the article on the subject to know what it said, as that one-note wonder doesn't know anything except 'Blame Bush.'

The only problem for the clueless one, and people like him, that want to 'Blame Bush' is that he may be blaming the wrong Bush, or should I say, may have ignored blame that belonged at the feet of George H.W. Bush, and later Bill Clinton, and then later still George W. Bush.

What am I talking about?

How about this news: Minn. Bridge Problems Uncovered in 1990

How about specifically this part:

Minnesota officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge that plummeted into the Mississippi River was "structurally deficient," yet they relied on a strategy of patchwork fixes and stepped-up inspections.

...

In 1990, the federal government gave the I-35W bridge a rating of "structurally deficient," citing significant corrosion in its bearings. That made it one of 77,000 bridges in that category nationwide, 1,160 in Minnesota alone.

The designation means some portions of the bridge needed to be scheduled for repair or replacement, and it was on a schedule for inspection every two years.

During the 1990s, later inspections found fatigue cracks and corrosion in the steel around the bridge's joints. Those problems were repaired. Starting in 1993, the state said, the bridge was inspected annually instead of every other year.

A 2005 federal inspection also rated the bridge structurally deficient, giving it a 50 on scale of 100 for structural stability.

... there's more in the original article, but please, read those dates and tell me who was President when the problems were first uncovered?  How about I make it easy for you -- there was George H.W. Bush initially, then later William Jefferson Clinton, and later still George W. Bush.

Here's the better question -- who controlled the governmental purse strings during that time?  Up and down the line please.  Don't just tell me who controlled the federal $$.  Tell me who controlled the state and local budgets too?

Would it be wrong of me to point out that many of the issues with this bridge and the need for repairs and such were happening during the period of time when the Bush tax-cuts didn't exist.  In fact, uh, the Bush tax increases (compliments of Mr. Read My Lips, No New Taxes) existed.  And then later, there were the Clinton tax rates and Democrat controls in the Department of Transportation -- the folks that help allocate all of that federal money to building bridges for Interstate highways.

Any fool can come along and tell us all that this is yet another example of the lack of spending on our own needs, and they can easily blame it all on the wasting of money spent over in Iraq.  It doesn't take a genius to point at a pile of money that is starting to equal the better part of a trillion dollars.

That is a lot of money, and yes, it could have bought many nice things back home here in the U.S.A. *if the government opted to actually spend it on those things*.  Things like better flood protection for New Orleans (that was an earlier cry by the clueless one and his ilk...), better road surfaces and better bridges, and a lot of other things.

It is also possible, but not bloody likely, that had there not been Bush tax-cuts, the feds might have had more money to spend on some of these things, even with the money we've spent on Iraq.  Sadly that thought is highly flawed too as it has been shown numerous times that tax-cuts lead to increased revenues for the federal government just about every time they've ever been implemented.  The clueless old liberal, and others that believe that Democrats are the answer, always ignore those facts though, and instead promise that the first thing they'll do is roll back tax-cuts that have poured a lot of money back into the federal bank accounts.  Perhaps these wannabe geniuses should try looking past the Democrat talking points, and rallying cries and maybe they'd learn just how wrong their bleeting really is.