1. Lack of Funding?  Not Exactly.

2. Honoring the Override Six

3. Is Light Rail Really Greener?

4. How the Arts Should be Funded

5. Show me the Spending

1. Lack of Funding?  Not Exactly.

After the 35W Bridge collapsed last year many were jumping to conclusions that it was because of a lack of funding.  After months of studying the bridge, the National Transportation Safety Board released its findings last week on the real reason the 35W bridge collapsed.  In their own words, the bridge sadly fell because of “inadequate load capacity due to design errors of gusset plates.” 

All the maintenance and funding in the world couldn’t have changed the outcome because the bridge was incorrectly designed in the beginning.  As horrible as it was to have the bridge fall and have 13 people die, we must remember going forward that not everything bad that happens is due to a lack of funding. 

2. Honoring the Override Six

The Override Six (who sided with the DFL to increase your taxes), were honored by the Minnesota Sierra Club.  They claim the Override Six took a courageous stand for the environment in the last session.  The environment?  The vote to override the governor’s veto and increase the gas tax, license taxes, and transit taxes, had little-to-nothing to do with the environment.  Neil Peterson’s article explaining his reasons for voting for the override lists several reasons and at the end he says, “I wasn’t crazy about the quarter-cent sales tax for transit.”  And Rod Hamilton only voted for it in order to get a major highway in his district fixed, which ended up to be an empty promise.  That must be why he was the only one who didn’t attend the Sierra Club event.

But I suppose someone should honor the Override Six, seeing as their constituents only honored them by getting rid of four of them!

3. Is Light Rail Really Greener?

While we’re on the subject of light rail transit, MN Free Market Institute senior policy fellow Craig Westover recently published an article exposing the truth behind light rail and “green” transportation.  Often arguments are made by proponents of transit that say it saves energy as people will choose transit over their own cars.  But CATO’s Randal O’Toole found that “no region with rail transit has been able to attract more than 0.5 percent of travelers to switch from cars to transit.”  Plus, it turns out that transit can actually end up costing more energy than roads due to how much is spent to just build the rail lines.  But we don’t expect these findings to be reported in the Transportation Committee any time soon.

4. How the Arts Should be Funded

Last week MPR reported that eight arts organizations in the Twin Cities are receiving a total of $5 million in grants from the New York-based Wallace Foundation.  THIS is how non-profits should be funded:  through donations and grants from those who want to invest in the arts, NOT through mandatory taxes on citizens.  So now, not only will the Minnesota Orchestra, the Ordway, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts get back their donations to the Vote Yes campaign via Minnesotans paying higher sales taxes, but again via grants.

5. Show me the Spending

Check out this new website sponsored by the National Taxpayers Union.  The "Show Me the Spending" coalition is a large group of organizations focused on transparency in government spending.  They provide all kinds of tips, news, sample legislation and other links so taxpayers have easier access to find how government spends our tax dollars. 

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