The widening gyre

Postman on Politics tells us that

Republicans from East King County are hoping to have their area benefit from the viaduct logjam. Reps. Reps. Fred Jarrett, Jay Rodne and Glenn Anderson issued a statement today saying they "joined the governor in rejecting the City of Seattle's proposed timeline." They say they money for the viaduct should go instead to the 520 bridge and to widen I-405. (italics added)

Of course they want the money.

Garbage in, garbage out. The reason we can't decide what to do is because we don't need to do much besides Repair it. That's the explanation for the six years it has taken to get us to a point where we don't know what to do. If there was a true emergency, we would have done made some simple amelioratives such as lower the speed limits or the tonnage allowed. But have we? No.

Also, all the options except some basic Repair are discretionary. When you start the debate by insisting that there is an emergency which demands a certain course of action (here that we can't  Repair the Viaduct) you create a mess  which you have a hard time managing. (The parallels between Iraq and the Viaduct are striking.) The final result will of course be — after the national laughter dies down — to do piecemeal Repairs.