Biden Gets to Work While Congress Squabbles

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I came across an article on the internet this morning that highlighted how drastically Congress has changed in less than twenty years by comparing congressional reaction to two massive bridge failures.  In 2007 the I-35 W Mississippi River Bridge collapsed in Minnesota, a tragic event that resulted in the deaths of 13 people and created huge traffic disruptions.  The US House of Representatives voted unanimously two days later to approve federal funding to start rebuilding the bridge and repair the major traffic artery.  The Senate quickly agreed and the bill was on President Bush's desk five days after the bridge had fallen into the water.

Those were the good old days.

When the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed this past Tuesday in the early hours of the morning after being struck by a disabled cargo-container ship, there was no unanimity in the current Congress where reactions ranged from hints that it might have been a deliberate attack (Marge Greene, R-GA), to complaints that it was President Biden's fault for not spending enough on bridges in his infrastructure bill (Nancy Mace, R-SC)), to even one suggesting that rebuilding that bridge - which is critical to the regional and national economy due to its connection to the Port of Baltimore - was not a responsibility of the federal government (Dan Meuser, R-PA).

The current Congress is far more impacted by the milieu of conspiracy theorists, partisan punditry, and social media than any of its predecessors, all of which helps to fuel its skepticism, cynicism, and occasional outbreaks of pure lunacy.   Well known conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said on X, "Looks deliberate to me.  A cyber attack is probable.  WW3 has already started."   (Head to the shelters, Alex.  We'll check on you in a decade or three!)

Maria Bartiromo of Fox News suggested that the tragedy had something to do with "the wide open border," and while there is no obvious connection with the bridge collapse and US border policies, the eight construction workers who went into the water when the bridge collapsed were all originally from Mexico and Central America, so perhaps that figured into her political calculus.  

There were also some tweets on X that seemed to somehow conflate the bridge collapse and political pressure to rebuild with the fact that Mayor Brandon Scott of Baltimore is black.  One referred to him as the DEI mayor, and another - by the Michigan GOP - used the term "colored communism" in reference to the mayor and his desire to get the bridge replaced as quickly as possible.

But standing above all of that noise was the President of the United States who was saying that the collapsed bridge is a federal responsibility and that the government would move aggressively to get the site cleared and get the bridge replaced.  Four days after the catastrophe, the largest crane on the east coast has been relocated to the site of the collapse, and $60 million in emergency funding has been allocated to the state of Maryland to get the process started.   

That's from Joe Biden and the White House.  Congress is still squabbling.