ANOTHER “Bridge To Nowhere”… HONEST
May 20, 2012
A Bridge No One Can Use
In Hillsborough, New Hampshire, not Alaska, there is a new “Bridge to Nowhere.” It is the most flagrant example of Washington waste The Kitchen Cabinet has seen.
Built with stimulus money, the bridge was intended to be the second half of a two-way traffic thoroughfare in Hillsborough, but the second half….DEAD ENDS into a wrought iron fence! Not only does the bridge not completely make it to the other side, for now, it is surrounded by a wrought iron fence so that no one accidentally gets on it…and drives off a man-made cliff!
Needless to say, Governor Mitt Romney has made it part of his campaign trail. From The Wall Street Journal:
Where did the hundreds of millions in stimulus actually go?
“Mitt Romneydubbed the stimulus the “largest one-time careless expenditure of government money,” as he criticized federal dollars used to rehab a historic bridge here.
The thing is, the bridge leads nowhere. The Sawyer Bridge sits atop the Contoocook River, but it doesn’t connect to a road on the other side. Although it’s not functional, the state received stimulus funds to repair the stone bridge.
“That’s your stimulus dollars at work: A bridge that goes nowhere,” Mr. Romney. It was his last campaign stop during a week in which he focused on the need to cut government spending and the debt and Friday he directed his fire at the stimulus.
“It is without question the largest one-time careless expenditure of government money in American history,” Mr. Romney said of the stimulus.
That message didn’t sit well with a handful of ardent President Barack Obama supporters (and at least one campaign staff member) who showed up to protest the event. As the protesters chanted, Gilman Shattuck, 85 years old, sat quietly among them.
Mr. Shattuck, a former member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives and a Democrat, also happened to be a contributor to a book of historical images of city. He wrote the chapter on bridges. Sites like the Sawyer Bridge, he said, are important history landmarks that help out with the New Hampshire tourism industry.
“We’re talking sofa money, sofa change money,” Mr. Shattuck said of the stimulus dollars funneled to the bridge. According to the Associated Press, the total amount of stimulus funding used to repair the bridge was $150,000.
To combat the debt, Mr. Shattuck suggested candidates take a look at the tax system. “The taxation system in this country is grossly unfair. The 1%…is unduly favored.”
AMAZING. This is only one embarrassing stimulus project, in one town, in one state. Imagine where else our money has gone…….
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/05/18/romney-targets-stimulus-at-bridge-to-nowhere/
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