It may be crass right now to point out that this crisis will be political from the start. Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty had prided himself on not raising taxes during his long tenure while our Dep't of Transportation suffered immensely on major highway projects. State lawmakers spent last session debating solutions to a $10B+ shortfall in DoT spending due to Pawlenty's delays and vetoes. Highway maintenance money from all over the state had been redirected to a few projects in order to keep spending so low.

I don't think its crass at all. I thought about this same thing this morning. You confirmed my hypothesis that this could have been prevented but for the "starve the beast" mentality of Republicans for the last 30 yrs.

Guess what folks, it costs money to build and MAINTAIN roads. Paying taxes is a good thing.

Senator Reid has made comments today alluding to the failure of government to continue to maintain its infrastructure.

Let's hold on a moment. I too thought of the state GOP's taxophobia, and Pawlenty's opposition to spending money on transportation, bad roads and the economy be damned. However, we don't yet know what caused this collapse, so we don't know that maintenance on it got delayed or would have made a difference, nor whether if that's the case, it was state or federal funding that was the issue. I've gone after Pawlenty over the Crosstown Commons and Hwy 53 in my personal blog, so I speak as someone positioned to say I told you so when I say wait for the investigation.