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John McCain Thinks We Can't Connect Dots
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Campaigning in Pennsylvania yesterday, Senator McCain claimed the bridge collapse in Minnesota last year was a result of "pork barrel spending".
Republican John McCain said Wednesday that the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people last year would not have happened if Congress had not wasted so much money on pork-barrel spending.
Federal investigators cite undersize steel plates as the "critical factor" in the collapse of the bridge. Heavy loads of construction materials on the bridge also contributed to the disaster that injured 145 people on Aug. 1, according to preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board.
"The bridge in Minneapolis didn't collapse because there wasn't enough money," McCain told reporters while campaigning in Pennsylvania. "The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects."
Pretty clearly, the bridge collapsed because it was poorly engineered and constructed. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates it would take nearly $190 billion to fix more than 70,000 bridges deemed “structurally deficient.”
In fact, the funds for maintaining bridges like the one in Minnesota come from the Highway Trust Fund. The Highway Trust Fund is funded by the federal excise tax on gasoline sales.
Which is the same excise tax Senator McCain proposes we eliminate this summer to give voters a little "psychological" bump.
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