Did Pork cause bridge collapse?

Yahoo! News has a story about McCain “backing off” an earlier statement that pork barrel projects caused the Minnesota bridge collapse. However, while earmarks didn’t cause the bridge to collaps – structural errors did – they didn’t help either, and McCain is correct to hammer on pork spending in transportation, especially when others are crying that we need more spending in transportation.

At the federal level, Congress voted to fund the “International Peace Garden,” “America’s Wetland Center,” bike paths, and a baseball stadium in the transportation budget, rather than dedicate that funding to bridge repair. In Minnesota, they raised taxes to build the Twins a stadium. And here in PA, we are using transporation dollars for “ambience” in Lancaster, a transportation museum in Allentown, and a better view from the Capitol in Harrisburg