I got to thining today about the bridge collapse, and I was reminded of something Lou wrote about in War on the Middle Class. Here it is:

Our highways, bridges, and dams are literally crumbling. Congress passed the massive Transportation Act of 2005, which any reasonable citizen would have expected to deal with our critical infrastructure needs. The reality? The Republican-led Congress and Bush White House agreed to spend $286 billion over five years, much of which went directly to pork-barrel spending in the districts of congressmen and the states of senators that does little to meaningfully respond to the nation's need to repair and improve our national infrastructure. Instead, the legislation includes funding for 6,371 pet projects demanded by our nation's representatives, at a cost to the tax payer of $25 billion. Prime examples of just how extensive the pork is in this bill is the inclusion of $1.2 million to install lighting at the Blue Ridge Music Center in Virginia; $2.3 million to beautify California's Ronald Reagan Freeway; $4 million for the Packard Museum in Ohio; $5.8 million for a snowmobile trail in Vermont; and $6 million to remove graffiti in New York. And Alaska, the third least populous state, managed to get the fourth highest number of "earmarks," the politically correct term for pork.

Now, Dobbs didn't mention Minnesota in particular, but the possiblity arrises that funds that should have been used to update and improve this bridge may have been used by the representatives on "pet projects" and pork. $286 billion is a lot of money. It was appropriated, and it seems that Minnesota could have used its share on the bridge. Hopefully Dobbs looks into how Minnesota representatives used the money appropriated by the Transportation Act of 2005.