If you can prove what you paid in Federal taxes in 1955, I'll gladly refund to you my estimate of the fraction of that sum that allowed my parents to take me over the 202 bridge to Lambertville for ice cream after the hurricane.

The ice cream itself was paid for with private funds.

That said, being able to move military materiale into New Jersey over US 202 was probably the defense-oriented rationale. Being that the bridge crossed a state line didn't hurt either...commerce clause, y'know.

When a screed is that shrill, it doen't much matter what the spin is.

I figure you owe my Mom 3.5 cents plus interest. I'll let you off the hook on my Dad since he is now deceased.

I said *my* estimate, and offered interest (or inflation adjustment). I take it you paid no Federal taxes personally in 1955, so the offer is void.

3.5 cents is a massive overestimate, by the way...take the ratio of the cost of bridge repair to the federal budget for 1955 (59 billion), then multiply by the taxes paid. Then multiply by the fraction of our ice-cream-based usage aganst the total usage of the bridge from the time of the repair to the present (51 years).

http://www.drloriv.com/newhopetour/images/bridge4.jpg

Not bad for a 100 year old bridge.

Thanks for setting our priorities straight.

More quotes from someone that MaggieL considers a lefty extremist: According to MaggieL, above is also lefty rhetoric. She knows because she has been properly indoctrinated into right wing conservatism. Or has she? Maybe she is so wacko extreme right that even right wing conservatives are pinko lefties? The above quotes are from Pat Buchanan - a famous right wing conservative. To MaggieL, Pat Buchanan is a leftist because MaggieL is that wacko right wing extreme. To MaggieL, centrists are also lefty pinko extremists. It happens when political agendas replace intelligent thought.

One can be conservative and smart. Buchanan did not let wacko extremist rhetoric promote lies about WMDs and threats of a toothless Saddam. Remember MaggieL - you were first to post insults without any supporting facts. Poltical dogma is not a replacement for intelligent thought. You could have posted facts in defense of your opinions. But that is not what fringe extremists do.

Intelligent conservatives label George Jr and so many in his administration as incompetent. Apparently it takes longer for logical thought to get out to extremist fringe. Your opinions are even 'right wing extremist' to Pat Buchanan.

Insult - one posts accusations not based in reality and not even justified by facts. MaggieL, that is the difference between what you posted and what a responsible poster does. You would be better advised to provide supporting facts with your posts. Above is an example of how intelligent conservatives reason.

$59 billion in 1955 is $440 billion today. Extremists and lying politician do this - post a half fact.

That $34 billion in 1958 is $160 billion in 1991 (instead of only $114 billion that was spent) and is $233 billion in today's money. Marichiko has demonstrated how the US spends less on American infrastructure - but will spend $400 billion to liberate people who did not want to be liberated. Once we provide all numbers, then one must ask why George Jr is running record deficits - and yet spending less on schools, highways, etc.

Meanwhile there is no way around the fact that a president was told how disastrous Katrina would be - and did nothing. Geroge Jr did not even ask one simple question. Not one question. Responsible leaders - with intelligence - ask many questions. Challenge their subordinates to do better. George Jr did what an MBA would do.

Then George Jr outrightly lied by declaring, "Nobody expected the levees to be breached." and "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job." This is someone that MaggieL would consider responsible? Only fringe extremists could suggest that.

Posted capital expenditure numbers accurately demonstrate that the US government now spends less on federal infrastructure. $80+ billion for a space station that does no science? Hundreds of $billions for an 'ill advised' man to Mars mission - for the greater glory of George Jr. No problem. $400 billion to liberate people who don't want to be liberated? No problem.

A few $billion to save one of the most successful science tools in the history of mankind? No money left. Spending $billions on an anti-missile defense system that does not work and that destroys another world treaty? No problem - plenty of cash for that political agenda.

The word commonly used on both left and right is incompetent – except where fringe extremist rhetoric replaces facts, the numbers, and reality.

I can tell the difference between that level of discourse and chanting "mental midget". Can you?

I don't consider myself a conservative, but rather a small-l libertarian, verging on objectivist. I didn't say anything about "insults" or "fringe" or "extreme". I did mention a "shrill screed", because that's exactly what I saw. I've seen it before...directed at Nixon. I'm not at all a fan of Nixon now nor then, but I recognize the same drumbeat now in the Bush-hating crowd that drove the Nixon-hating crowd then--a crowd I was very much part of at the time.

The problem with that approach to politics is that it confuses "criticism" with "critical thought". It's very comforting to hang out with a crowd of like-thinking Bush haters and swap chimp jokes, or foam at the mouth about the conspiracy theory du jour. In addition to the warm sense of cameraderie it confers upon the participants with the addition frisson of beleving they're not only righteous, but intellectually superior to those poor red-necked red-staters outside the cult.

But the real tragedy of it all is that that style of thought seems to relieve the participants of any need to offer anything viable as an alternative. "I hate Bush, just like alll my friends. Isn't that enough? Hey, do you TiVo the Daily Show?".

In 2000 I voted for Gore. Not enthusiastically. In 2001 I became glad that that was the minority opinion, because the post-cold war pax didn't last anywere near as long as we'd hoped, and the idea of Gore at the helm in such times was almost as chilling as Clinton, or (Goddess help us) Carter.

The truly frustrating thing for me about Bush and his buddies is that there's nobody in the opposition I can like better...and that a pretty low bar to pass.

Frink says 370 billion...but I said in the sentence before that one I wasn't offering an inflation adjustment. You wouldn't want to post half a fact now, would you?

Ah...but *you're* the one who wanted me to pay for my fifty-years-ago ice cream.

*My* priority is not making the Feds the solution to evey problem, and then whining when you discover they aren't. "The Feds" is *us*. We pay for it all. When we demand miracles, or indemnity from every misfortune or bad decsion, *we* pay the bill. Of course, the alternative theory is that the Federal government is properly a tool for removing money from people who have it and giving it to people you like, under the guise of "the common good".

Not sure I get your point with the poster-children pic. And I'm *really* not sure it's neither staged nor photoshopped. ("Frank! Frank! You need to misspell one of the words; it doesn't look like real graffiti at all! Just leave the 'e' off of 'please'...we gotta shoot this, blog it and get outta here.")

I'm sure it "represents a higher truth" though.

I'm wondering, if your ass is about to drown. Do you grab a can of spray paint or does one just float by? Perhaps it's part of must have storm survival gear. Opps forgot the flags.:smack:

Sure, why not? Going by your philosophy, the Feds took money from my hard working folks in Colorado and gave it to people you liked, so you could have a bridge over to the ice cream shop. What common good was that? Put your money where your mouth is if you can get the ice cream cone away from your face.

I thought Ayn Rand was cute when I first read her at age 16. Some of us get over it. Some of us don't. I have discovered that arguing with one of Ms. Rand's "true believers" is about as productive as arguing with one of Jim Dobson's. You got YOUR bridge and the hell with everyone else.

If there had not been real suffering and unnecessary deaths in N.O., the question of the picture's validity might have a point to it. Whatever the origin of that particular shot (which I just picked off google at random), it stands for the very real nightmare lived by the people of N.O.

The writing does not appear to be that of an illiterate person. If I was faking it, I'd have enough sense to not make it look so pretty, but who knows and who cares? Want me to find some pictures of dead bodies, instead?

BusterB, they probably broke into a store and looted those items. People were actually barred from leaving NO, if you'll recall, and ended up camped on the highways.

Ask the people who have used the bridge for free in the ensuing fifty years what good it was. Most of them were going someplace other than the ice cream shop.
What's left of my money after the Feds get through with it *is* where my mouth is. And the ice cream was evidently eaten long before you were born. I had no say in how Federal funds were spent in 1955, but if you really want your Mom's share of the bridge repair back, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to me (address on request) and I'll send you a penny. Keep the change. Don't forget to pay inheritance tax on it; after all...it's not your money yet. But if you'll pay first-class postage X 2 to collect an imaginary <1 cent debt, you may have other financial management issues too.

It's not my bridge...it's everybody's bridge; "everyone else" gets to use it for free. And it wasn't built with your mom's taxes...it was only *repaired*.

The bifdge was originally constructed with private money, and operated for profit. It was then purchased by a non-profit that opposed collecting tolls (and perhps alos repairs). It was already fifty years old at the time of the repair. As I said before, today I'm not sure it made sense to have the CoE do it, but I was three years old and nobody asked me about it.

I've certainly seen a *lot* less-useful spending of Federal taxes since then.

What I find notable about the 1955 flood wasn't that the CoE repaired the bridge, but that nobody blamed Eisenhower or the Government for the flood or the resulting deaths and damage. They just pulled together locally to help people out as best they could, and then cleaned up the mess afterward.

So I was right...it's that "higher truth" thing again, like Rathergate and "Farenheit 911". What matters isn't the provenance or context...only the propiganda value.

I don't question that there was much death and suffering in the Gulf during and after Katrina. But somehow NO gets *much* more press from the "higher truth" crowd....it's that randomly Googled image posterchild star quality I suppose. What bugs me is the relentless attempts at political exploitation of that death and suffering...which is what that image stands for for me.

Why not just e-mail each other? Save UT the bandwith. BB ducks!

My parents weren't among their number. The bridge was worthless to them.

You claim to be a libertarian/adherant of Ms. Rand's. In your philosophy, that debt is NOT imaginary. My Mother is a staunch conservative-verging-on-neocon. I'll ask her if she'd like to be repaid just on the principle of the thing. If she demands her penny, I'll PM you with her address. You should have the conviction of your principles to eat the money for postage. I was born in '51, BTW.

I can see that you I could have endless fun arguing this thing with neither of us convincing the other in the slightest. I have an errand to run, I'll decide later if I want to continue this pointless squabble and reply to the remainder of your post.