And apparently, according to state Democrat District Chairman Chad “I Love Communism” Nodland, that means we’re all gonna die.

According to the Government Performance Project, North Dakota has $1.45 billion in deferred highway maintenance.  That means we have A BILLION AND A HALF DOLLARS worth of maintenance—including bridge maintenance—we’ve been neglecting, right here in North Dakota.

I’ve spent most of my adult life working a job that required me to travel all over North Dakota, and I’ve always found our roads and highways to be just fine.  Not always great, but never dangerous.  Regardless, the stat above is worthy of a reasonable amount of concern.

What isn’t reasonable is Nodland’s next paragraph:

Anybody know what happens when fiscal conservatives blame “tax and spend Democrats” for wasting money on bridge inspection and construction?

I’d like to know which fiscal conservatives have ever opposed wasting money on infrastructure maintenance.  Because I’m pretty sure most conservatives consider infrastructure like roads and bridges to be one of the few legitimate roles of government.

What Nodland is trying to do is conflate legitimate government spending on necessary things like roads and bridges with the liberal left’s constant crusade to raise taxes and expand government into ever aspect of our lives.

Government spending on roads and bridges is one thing.  Government spending on free abortions for women who don’t have enough respect for themselves to keep their legs shut (among other social entitlements that emphasize government dependence and undermine personal responsibility) is quite another.  But this is the despicable angle the liberals have chosen to take on the tragedy in Minnesota.

They just see it as a big, fat excuse to raise taxes.  As though a lack of funding, and not a bunch of irresponsible politicians spending our tax dollars on stuff other than road/bridge maintenance, were the problem.  After all, maybe if we weren’t spending more on social entitlements in a singe year than the entire flippin’ world lays out for military and war spending we might have some extra dough to throw at these bridges and roads.

But that’s just me, and I guess I’m one of those nasty “fiscal conservatives” Nodland sneers at.

Update by the Whistler

I see that in this biennium budget the state has $548,000,000 in capital improvements for the Department of Transportation.  The Previous budget had over $623,000,000 for capital improvements.  I think we can rest assured that we’re spending enough money for roads.  The question is is the state government spending the money where it’s needed.