According to a recent survey conducted by Roads & Bridges magazine, a majority of those in the transportation industry support Sen. John McCain over Sen. Barack Obama for president. Those who responded overwhelmingly chose McCain (49.3%), while just under 22% supported Obama. Almost 30% were undecided.
McCain’s choice for vice president, however, may have approved the same pork-barrel infrastructure projects the Arizona Congressman has been targeting for years. According to the Dayton Daily News, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin supported the bridge between the town of Ketchikan on Revillagigedo Island and Gravina Island—the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” project--when she ran for the state’s top office back in 2006. Although Palin has said publicly she did not support the bridge, reports discovered by the Dayton Daily News revealed the governor actually canceled the project last year, saying Alaska simply did not have the funds. In reality, Congress had deleted the SAFETEA-LU requirement that $223 million of Alaska’s federal funding allocation be used for the troubled span.
McCain was quick to hammer U.S. Rep. Don Young’s (R-Alaska) “Bridge to Nowhere” as wasteful government spending.
“[Palin] knew and she knows today that the state got every single cent [of federal funding],” Bob Weinstein, a democrat and mayor of Ketchikan, told the Dayton Daily News, which also reported that Palin went to the extent of hiring a lobbying firm to get nearly $27 million in earmarked funds when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, between 1996-2002.
More results of the Roads & Bridges magazine presidential survey will be available in the September issue.
