And you're still trying to pick gnat sh!t out of pepper topgun, and it's just as lame now as it ever was.
DOT earmarks are NOT "pork barrel" spending, and while I never agreed with those dollars being spent on that particular project, I do concede that the citizens of the State of Alaska DO have the Right to lobby for THEIR federal gasoline tax dollars to be brought back to Alaska for whatever projects THEY choose to spend them on. In fact, the only reason that anything was said about the bridge funding was because of TIMING! It hit at the same time that people were starting to *****, gripe and complain about the cost of the GWOT. If they'd gotten it before 9-11, or waited a couple more years, they'd have gotten the bridge, and NOBODY would have even heard of it, much less complained about it.
Everybody in America spends $.184 per gallon of gasoline, in federal taxes for DOT infrastructure expendatures, and I don't consider it to be unreasonable for the citizens of ANY State to try to get that money back for use in their own State.
To be completely honest, my only problem with this particular project comes from the fact that someone was dumb enough to build an airport, on an island, where the only way to get there is by crossing one of the busiest shipping channels in the country!!! If I had been on the Planning Commission, I'd have raised Holy HELL about that! There's a perfectly ideal spot for an airport to the east of Ketchikan between Beaver Falls and Herring Cove, and while it would have been a bit more of a drive, they wouldn't have to worry about taking a ferry, or try to build a $400 million+ pair of bridges across a ship channel.
Now, as for Governor Palin's reaction, the funding for the bridge was killed by Congress in November of 2005, over a year before she was even elected to office, and by the time she took office, and the decision was made to abandon the project, the reason was simple, they didn't have enough money to build it any longer, and she wasn't going to raise taxes in order TO build it.
Now, perhaps you'd like to take the time to at least attempt to be intellectually HONEST for a change and do your homework before you start slandering, defaming, and flat out LYING about people for purely political reasons?
