BY SARAH ROSS
WASHINGTON, D.C. - With the Thursday night passage of the national Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill, the Sellwood Bridge is $650,000 closer to being replaced.
The nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, secured by Congressman David Wu, D-1, adds onto the $1,266,000 that Wu brought in last year to help “reduce the hazard of head-on collisions between vehicles on the narrow lanes.”
“We cannot afford to sit back and let the Sellwood Bridge remain in a state of despair that threatens the safety of all of us,” said Wu in a media release sent out Friday morning. “A new Sellwood Bridge will once again be an economic driver that can carry busses and freight for local businesses.”
Immediacy, however, is not key to the project according to Multnomah County spokesman Mike Pullen who says that construction isn’t set to begin until 2012. He stressed the fact that the weight of cars is not the problem with the bridge. Instead, the condition of the bridge itself is the biggest problem.
As it stands, the bridge is closed to vehicles weighing more than 10 tons, meaning that busses and semi-trucks are barred from using it, due to cracks in the infrastructure discovered in 2004. Pullen said that the project is still seeking $40 million in federal funding to round out its $330 million tab.
The bridge, which connects the Sellwood neighborhood of southeast Portland with Highway 43 in Oregon City on the west side of the Willamette River, was built in 1925 and is the lower Willamette River’s oldest “non-moveable bridge,” according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.
State transportation legislation was passed during the 2009 session that provided $30 million for the Sellwood Bridge project and allowed the involved counties, Multnomah and Clackamas, to pass a surcharge on their local vehicle registrations to create additional funding.
Director of the Center for Real Estate at Portland State University, Gerard Mildner, suggested tolling on the bridge might be a better way to pay for the project. He noted that the surcharge on vehicle registration in Clackamas and Multnomah counties gets closer to his desire in terms of geographic equity and presents the option for a section of the state with “acute” needs to not have to wait for the rest of the state to pitch in.
He argued that the idea of a flat surcharge did nothing, however, to address the fact of those not using the bridge but still having to pay for it.
“To me it’s the second or third best option, but it is certainly better than the statewide or federal funding source,” said Mildner.
More OPM (Other people’s money) added to what we are begging for in “federal” aid.
$650k is like chump change, and mostly is a way to get Wu some headlines on the cheap.
I’d be a lot more impressed if Wu stopped the system whereby gasoline tax revenues are sent to boondoggles like the Milwaukee lightrail project and instead actually used to maintain briges in a timely manner. On the latter score, Wu comes up woefully short.
“More than 32 million children rely on federal child nutrition programs,” Wu said. “By reviewing and improving these programs, we help make sure that children get enough healthy food, especially during the current economic downturn.”
I commend David Wu for being one of the original co-sponsors of the Child Nutrition Bill!
Of all of David Wu’s schemes on deficit spending, this is one program that is important.
If we take David Wu’s position on children nutrition in the context of all of his other legislation on deficit spending, we see a very disturbing cycle and massive conflict of interest.
Let me explain:
David Wu voted for the Government takeover of health care which will sanction families who still cannot afford health insurance with a $750 penalty. This would be the equivalent of about 600 cans of vegetables for the balanced diet.
Next David Wu voted for “Cap and Trade” which is a $1760 dollar hidden tax on our seniors. This is the equivalent of an entire winters heating bill, and utilities.
The we must look at the David Wu and Democratic Socialist taxing and spending!
1. 2 % Repeal Bush Tax cut
2. 2% War tax on so-called rich
3. 2% tax on so-called rich
4. 3.8% Medicare Levi on unearned income ( stocks, and rental property)
5. 42% Health care tax on health care plans
6. 5% increase in capital gains from 15% to 20%
7. Scheduled changes in 1040 tax tables of between 3% and 6%
8. 55% “Death tax”
9. Marriage penalty tax
10. Energy programs that burn food stocks and drive up the costs of all dairy products, and vegetables for our children and seniors.
So, David Wu is seeking KUDOS for the “Child Nutrition Act” while all of his other Democratic Socialist agendas seek to massively increase taxation and drive more people into poverty? In other words, lets put a band-aid on the reality that is created by Wu’s World? Lets take away from the family! Lets take away from the so-called rich and small business owners that create jobs. Lets take away the home that has been in the family name for 50 years, and make the children pay 55% on it.
Lets tax and tax and turn 10% unemployment into 20% unemployment. Lets create an economic environment that will drive the DOW to 5000 ,destroy our senior’s 401kS, and make them totally dependent on government. Lets double the national debt from $11 trillion to $20 trillion in one Democratic Socialist administration.
First David Wu voted against war, and then he voted for war. Now he is voting against war. Under just 18 months in office, Obama has increased War spending from $133 billion a year to $233 billion a year, and federal government by 25% a year. With hard federal revenue stagnating at $2.2 trillion , Obama and Wu increased Government from $3.1 trillion under Bush to $3.83 trillion. Now the 2010 federal deficit is on track again to hit between $1.6 trillion and $1.8 trillion. Obama and Wu will stick our children with paying the interest on $20 trillion in debt by the mid part of 2013.
So, the end product of all of David Wu’s propensities and towing the Democratic Socialist agenda is more families out of work, more meaningless government, and more poverty. It is becomes evident that tax and spend Democratic Socialism creates more poverty that it overcomes. Socialist countries traditionally have a 20% unemployment rate. Some areas of East Berlin still have unemployment rates of over 25%. One only has to go to Norway or Sweden to see what Socialism costs. Currently just a lunch in Northern Norway costs close to $40 American dollars. An “All you can eat pizza lunch” in London is $30 bucks.
David Wu stated at a town hall event that we can grow ourselves out of debt???????
In 1982 during the Reagan administration the baby boomer turned 37 with kids, earth shoes, braces, and Levi 501s.
In 1992 during the Clinton ERA, the baby boomer turned 47 with no kids, the information age, a new house, new cars, new computers, dual income, and the “Wealth effect”!
In 2002 during Gerge Bush’s presidency the boomer turned 57, and was recouping from the DOTCOM fiasco, the Bush/Gore dangling chad, 9/11, The Afghanistan war, the Iraq war, $5 dollar a gallon of gas, and the housing bubble which was brought on by low interest rates and the lax policies the Clinton housing agenda.
In 2012 the boomer turns 67, and 5 million boomers every year will be leaving the workforce for full-ride entitlements, and Medicare. I wonder if we should add the 20% Democratic Socialist unemployment figure here????
Sometime in the future, there will be 80 million boomers on a government check. In addition, we will also have to pay for the government industrial complex, the health care industrial complex, the military industrial complex, and the nanny state industrial complex! Just this reality will drive our families to buying less and less quality of food for their children. As a result, our children will be subject to more obesity, which will open the door to all manner of diseases from high blood pressure to diabetes and on and on and on.
If you think about it, all of David Wu’s policies will either drive up costs on food, taxation, products, government, and the national debt!!!! The biggest catch 22 is handing the bill to the children he is seeking to feed with the “Child Nutrition Act”.
It is evident then that David Wu’s policies put our children at more risk then a simple band-aide or KUDO in an election year can fix!