Don’t let MAGA right block bridge rebuild

Soon after a huge container ship struck Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, bringing it down, President Joe Biden pledged the federal government would “pay the entire cost of reconstructing” the bridge. That would clearly be the right thing to do, not just to help the state of Maryland but also to limit the economic damage from a disaster that has blocked both a major road artery and a major port. Among other things, the Port of Baltimore plays a key role in both exports of coal and trade in farm and construction equipment, so the bridge disaster will have adverse effects on both the heartland and the East Coast.

And if America were still the same country that enacted the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 — passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law by a Republican president — which gave rise to our interstate system, there would be little question Congress would approve funding soon after it returns from Easter recess.

But we aren’t that country anymore. Biden will probably be able to get funds for rebuilding, but it’s by no means a sure thing.

The rise of MAGA Republicans is only part of the problem. I’ve seen several people citing the response to the 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota as an example of what things were like in a better political era. Indeed, within days, Congress voted unanimously to provide $250 million in aid.

But that was a one-off. The Minnesota bridge collapse highlighted the decaying state of America’s infrastructure, and one might have expected the disaster to lead to real action, but it didn’t. President Barack Obama pleaded with Congress to approve broad increases in infrastructure spending and was able to sign a highway funding bill in 2015, but for the most part he was stymied by GOP opposition.

Major action on infrastructure didn’t happen until late 2021 with the enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — which, despite the name, received only 13 Republican votes in the House. That was with Democrats in full control of Congress. It’s not foolish to worry MAGA hard-liners will block aid to Maryland in much the same way they’ve blocked aid to Ukraine.

The history here is reason enough to worry about rebuilding in Baltimore, even if the bridge collapse hadn’t been caught up in culture war politics. But of course it has.

So will partisanship and conspiracy theorizing get in the way of rebuilding the Key Bridge? I’d like to dismiss that risk. But not that long ago, if you had asked me, I wouldn’t have expected Republicans to stonewall aid to Ukraine, either. So this is no time to be complacent.