One year since bridge falls

iamerqI live in Minnesota so that story line filled the news this past weekend. As a result of that, there were several talking heads- mostly conservative- who criticized the 5 cents per gallon gas tax imposed by the state to pay for infrastructure repair. Tim Pawlenty- our governor who is tripping over himself to be McCain's VP pick- also used the opportunity to slap a round the Dems for that choice saying that the democrats in the state house and senate chose to burden families who are already overpaying at the pump.

The facts are these-

While the national average price per gallon remains at about $3.88 local pumps are flowing at $3.53 (including the higher state gas tax). So apparently, the higher gas tax doesn't really matter and is serving to provide some of the much needed infrastructure repair that is long overdue (without passing the burden on to our children).

$3.53 is still high. High enough to get us to continue to look for ways to reduce our usage- tune-up your car, properly inflate your tires, reduce use of the vehicles where possible, car pool, and thew like.

Then there is all this moise about off-shore drilling. Until these people who are spouting this as a great idea- the same ones who were saying as recently as a year ago (explaining why the cost was so high) that drilling isn't the problem, its the capacity of our refineries- can explain how exactly it will help (without development of those same refineries)- I think we all should just tell them to shut up.

But that is just me.