Congressman: Minnesotans 'Screwed Us'

Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., isn't one of those people waxing rhapsodic about the need to help our fellow citizens in need after last week's 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. On the contrary, according to this report in the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader, he thinks the $250 million bill Congress passed to rebuild the bridge was a taxpayer ripoff because it exceeded the normal $100 million limit for emergency relief projects.

The folks of Minnesota "discovered they were going to get all the money from the federal government and they were taking all they could get,” Kanjorski said at an economic summit at the University of Scranton. They used the tragedy “to screw us,” he added.

At the same event, Kanjorski declared that we're not just living through a seemingly endless era when people lack confidence in the performance of the government. No, he said, we're the brink of civil war. “I’m in fear for the survival of the republic,” he said. “People want to get their deer rifles out and go to the barricades.”

I haven't seen any barricades lately, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.