LETTERS: BRIDGE-BUILDING DREAM

To the editor:

When I first heard of the proposed bridge to the 21st century, I thought it was just a fairy-tale gimmick to get the votes of those who love fairy tales. But after careful though and several conferences with experts, I decided this was a necessary addition to our infrastructure. After all, how else are we going to reach the 21st century?

After several months of mulling this important topic over in my mind, I had a dream about it one night.

It went like this:

First, taxes had to be put in place to provide funding for this project. That was easily taken care of. When a tax-increase proposal was put before the Senate, it passed by a vote of 100-0 (the president signed it 12 times). In the House, there were 10 votes against the increase. Of course, those opposed were extremists. There were also freshmen representatives who hadn't been in office long enough to realize they were expected to rubber stamp any tax or spending bill. It also happened they were the only ones who the lobbyists hadn't gotten to yet.

Next came all the legal hassles over which minority contractor would get the job. After countless charges, countercharges, appeals and delays, it reached the Supreme Court. After deliberating several months, the court rules the contract should go to the highest bidder. After several lawsuits over the procurement of materials, it was decided by the Supreme Court that we should take the matter to the United Nations to decide for us. After dozens of delays and renegotiating the contract due to cost overruns, the bridge was finally finished. However, the cost had exceeded the original estimate by 3,021 percent. This unexplained shortfall would have to be made up. After several congressional hearings, a veteran senator came up with a plan to put a toll on the bridge. This would have worked fine, but there were so many peasants who wanted to escape the 20th century that the bridge couldn't handle all the traffic. The same senator then proposed that the toll be raised to high that only the elite could pay it. This left the peasants stranded in the 20th century.

Also, the tolls weren't taking in enough to pay for the cost overruns. The same senator again came to the rescue. He proposed and got passed (100-0) another tax increase to subsidize tolls for all the Russians and Chinese who could be talked into crossing. In order to keep from overloading the bridge, they issues passes and limited them to only 100,000 per day.

I don't know what happened then, because I awoke in cold sweat and sick at my stomach. And I realized I was still in the 20th century.

RAY UMBDENSTOCK

Cape Girardeau