Already, as a result of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the calls are coming for us to spend more money on infrastructure. One analyst, Stephen Flynn, says we’ve “squandered” the infrastructure legacy that our fathers and grandfathers left us. He says:

America’s gross domestic product in 2006 was $13.2 trillion — we can afford to have world-class infrastructure. As a stepping-off point, we should insist that our elected representatives publicly acknowledge the risk of neglecting the bridges, roads and other essential hardware that goes into making a modern civilization. Then we should hold them accountable for setting priorities and for marshaling the requisite resources to repair our increasingly brittle society.

He points to the great projects of the past — “dams and canal locks, bridges and tunnels, aquifers and aqueducts, and even the Eisenhower interstate highway system” — and says they’re aging and, in some cases, crumbling. But why is that? With today’s OSHA requirements, union rules and quick-draw trial lawyers, we could not build a Golden Gate Bridge or a Hoover Dam. No wonder our infrastructure is crumbling.

He glosses over an important factor in our not replacing or maintaining many of our great engineering wonders in the manner we should: When they were first built we weren’t squandering trillions of public dollars on nanny-state welfare programs and entitlements. No, back then we were spending money on things government should be doing, like building and improving infrastructure.

Flynn’s entreaty, whether he meant it to or not, sounds like too much like the arguments used by global-warming alarmists to justify higher tax burdens and more government control of our lives.

UPDATE: Man, it’s worse than I thought. Check out Mike Barnicle subbing for spittle-spewing Chris Matthews on Hardball tonight. After asking if the bridge tragedy would help the Democrats (imagine if a conservative talk-show host had asked something as crass), he said (actually said):

“Government’s gotta get bigger to help, to help governors in, in various states.”