BorgBlog: Troubled Waters

Friday, August 03, 2007

Troubled Waters

17 Comments:

at 8/4/07, 3:39 AM

Anonymous said...

Unfortunate Truth

at 8/4/07, 10:58 AM

Anonymous said...

minnesota is running a $1+ billion dollar surplus.

i'm pretty sure they have enough cash on hand to maintain their infrastructure. they'd rather build new stadiums and fund new zoo exhibits.

once again, borgman refuses to face the facts.

at 8/4/07, 12:28 PM

jaydee said...

Jimbo.
Re your Zits strip where Jeremy starts the Nantucket limerick with There was a man from.... If you drew for Citybeat, as I do, you could quote the entire piece.
The other Jeremy D.

at 8/5/07, 11:58 AM

Anonymous said...

No need to fret, Dubya will fix all our needs with lame duck tape.

at 8/5/07, 12:41 PM

Anonymous said...

H. Beige....

Wow,you are so witty! Lame Duck Tape..

I laughed until I peed.... not.

Let's blame everything on the President when it is your Congressmen who vote on the budget...how can we fixed the infrastructure when how many billions of tax dollars are Pork Spending?

Wise up, you want improvements, lets hold our elected officials accountable for wasted tax dollars on Pork Projects.

at 8/5/07, 3:08 PM

Anonymous said...

I found it rather humorous.

at 8/5/07, 10:09 PM

Anonymous said...

at 10:58 AM Anonymous said...
"minnesota is running a $1+ billion dollar surplus.

i'm pretty sure they have enough cash on hand to maintain their infrastructure. they'd rather build new stadiums and fund new zoo exhibits."
Nothing could be further from the truth. I didn't realize Minnesota is running a $1 Billion dollar surplus. That is news to the people who live in Minnesota and in South Dakota, where I live. Please enlighten the readers of Borgblog where you have obtained evidence of a $1 Billion dollar surplus. Obviously, Riverfront Stadium (Cinergy Field) was replaced by Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ball Park with taxpayer dollars. At that time, Cincinnati-area residents viewed funding sports venues as a priority over funding improvements in infrastructure in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. I was eight blocks away from the bridge, at a souvenir store north of the Metrodome at 6:30 p.m. when it collapsed 15 minutes earlier. The moment was akin to listening to radio accounts of 9-11 while I was at work at credit card company in Sioux Falls. The comment by anonymous at 10:58 a.m. was callous and juvenile.

at 8/5/07, 10:29 PM

Anonymous said...

this is hard on me proving someone who actually LIVES in the state wrong, but ill go easy on you.

for starters, you can go to google, type in "minnesota budget surplus", and you'll find quite a few links where you can correct yourself on the misinformation you've been hand fed.

heres one of the first links that pop up (from late 2006):

State predicts $2 billion budget surplus over next three years
by Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio,
Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio
November 29, 2006
State finance officials say Minnesota will have a budget surplus that should top $2 billion over the next two-year budget cycle. The economic forecast released on Wednesday also says lawmakers will have a financial cushion of more than $1 billion for the current biennium. The surplus means lawmakers are likely to face a parade of proposals for spending the money in the 2007 session. Gov. Pawlenty also has proposed a plan that would give some of the money back to taxpayers.

St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota's financial health has improved significantly in three years. In 2003 lawmakers were facing a $4.5 billion deficit. They have plenty of budget breathing room heading into the 2007 legislative session thanks to higher-than-expected tax collections and lower-than-expected state spending. The projected surplus for the current two-year budget cycle weighs in at $1 billion, and grows to more than $2 billion by 2009.

Finance Commissioner Peggy Ingison says the forecast is "pretty good news," but she's urging lawmakers to be cautious. State law requires the forecast to ignore the effects of inflation. And Ingison says about a billion dollars of the projected surplus disappears when inflation is taken into account.

"We think that this is a pretty positive forecast that leaves us pretty well positioned. But a combination of economic changes and imprudent financial decisions could kind of put us in rough shape again. And that's what we'd like to avoid," she said.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/11/28/budget/

you can read the rest if you'd like. i mean, yeah, i was wrong. i said one billion dollars. apparently, its at least two billion dollars....

WHOOPS!

you, and apparently jim borgman, should REALLY learn to use the internet better. the world is at your fingertips, my friend.

at 8/6/07, 12:44 PM

Wettengel said...

Sometimes I understand why Anonymous disagrees with a Borgman cartoon (I usually don't agree with him/her/them but I understand)

But this one I don't get. Mr. Borgman was not, as far as I can tell, blaming anybody or any entity. He was just stating a fact. Whether it is the states problem, the feds problem, the peoples problem or some combination we are not funding infrastructure repairs fast enough. He was just pointing out there is a problem and it should be addressed.

at 8/6/07, 12:51 PM

Anonymous said...

Hey, Vizzini! Look what I found on the web.

http://www.mncn.org/bp/surpluses06.pdf

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/pressreleasels85.asp?district=37A&pressid=1940&party=1

at 8/6/07, 1:02 PM

Anonymous said...

It doesn't matter how much of a surplus there is. It wasn't used to maintain the infrastructure. The cartoon was right on.

at 8/6/07, 5:18 PM

Anonymous said...

i disagree with his cartoon because he is blatantly saying there isn't enough money to take care of the infrastructure. in the case of the minnesota bridge collapse, that is patently false. the money was there. (i proved that earlier). the state didn't use it.

coincidentally (/sarcasm), the democrats jumped on the "WE CANT AFFORD TO MAINTAIN OUR BRIDGES BECAUSE BUSH IS USING ALL OF THE MONEY FOR THE WAR IN IRAQ (that we voted for and still vote to fund...)!!!!11!11!!1!!1"

yeah, try again.

at 8/7/07, 10:06 PM

Anonymous said...

In response to the statement: "WE CAN'T AFFORD TO MAINTAIN OUR BRIDGES BECAUSE BUSH IS USING ALL OF THE MONEY FOR THE WAR IN IRAQ" Angela Harshman of St. Paul said in today's Star Tribune: "And to those who would claim there wasn't any funding going toward fixing that bridge-it was being repaired at the time of the collapse. However, Minnesota Republican governor Tim Pawlenty and his Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, who also serves as Minnesota's transportation commissioner, both decided to not follow a recommendation from an independent consultant who concluded that the "structurally deficient" bridge needed to be reinforced or replaced. "The lack of leadership and accountability from the Republican leadership is unconscionable," according to another letter to the editor in the Aug. 7, 2007 Star Tribune.

at 8/27/07, 12:10 PM

Anonymous said...

cost reduction means going behind the FAA's back and taking parts out of the commercial and military jet engines that were there when the engines were FAA certified; cost reduction means reducing performance on gas turbines; cost reduction means putting power turbines in the field that are catching fire; cost reduction means parts on gas turbines lasting 3 days in the field and blowing out millions of dollars worth of damage down the rest of the engine (great marketing stategies too!) - it's not for the war, it's for the ceo's multimillion dollar houses and multiple mercedes

at 8/27/07, 12:19 PM

Anonymous said...

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/08/firm_pleads_gui.html

Big Dig firm admits fraud as part of $50m settlement

at 8/27/07, 12:20 PM

Anonymous said...

Monday, August 27, 2007
Firm pleads guilty to fraud for supplying bad concrete for Big Dig
By Sean P. Murphy and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

A federal judge accepted a guilty plea today from Aggregate Industries NE Inc. for supplying 5,700 truckloads of substandard concrete on the Big Dig as part of a settlement in a fraud case that will cost the company $50 million.

Roberto Huet, president of Aggregate, the region's largest concrete supplier, stood in US District Court in Boston and agreed to the terms, which will help create an endowment to fund future repairs of the Big Dig. Judge Joseph L. Tauro asked Huet how the company would plead.

"Guilty," Huet said.

Fred M. Wyshak Jr., the federal prosecutor who headed the investigation, explained that "the policy of Aggregate was to provide concrete for the Big Dig that did not meet contract specifications."

"Leftover concrete on some occasions was mixed with new concrete and used on the Big Dig," Wyshak said in court. "On other occasions, entire truckloads of concrete rejected as too old or having too much water was used."

To hide the use of bad concrete, Aggregate officials falsified company records, writing up bogus batch tickets, Wyshak said.

Aggregate -- which was paid $105 million for its work on the Big Dig, including about $4.5 million for the substandard concrete -- agreed to pay $42 million to settle a civil investigation and $8 million in criminal fines.

US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Attorney General Martha Coakley have said they want $27 million of the settlement to be used as a first-of-its-kind endowment to pay for future maintenance and repairs on the long-troubled highway-and-tunnel project.

Posted by the Boston Globe City & Region Desk at 11:20 AM

at 8/27/07, 12:22 PM

Anonymous said...

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Friday, August 03, 2007

Troubled Waters

17 Comments: