Pawlenty, a Republican, was totally predictable in using his red veto pen because the funding package called for a tax increase. “While there is broad consensus that the state needs to build on the record level of transportation funding we have provided over the past five years, this bill is an overreaching, massive tax increase that will further burden Minnesotans during already difficult economic times,” the governor said in his veto message.

But we ask, if not from new tax revenues, then from where? The governor mentions previous “record level” of funding for roads and bridges, but most of that has come at his insistence of borrowing. It has caused huge interest payments which now threaten to cut monies the state Department of Transportation needs to maintain its infrastructure, let alone build new roads and bridges. And his answer this year is to borrow more — $416 million or nearly 40 percent of his $965 million state bonding bill. It would borrow $225 million for local bridges, as well as $70 million for metro light rail. Borrowing for roads and bridges — and railroads — shouldn’t come from general funds but from user fees, such as the gas tax. And such borrowing will have our children and grandchildren paying off the debt way into the future.

Instead, the bill would infuse $660 million a year over 10 years, creating tens of thousands of jobs, more than making up for the $50 a year the extra gas tax would cause an average family to again drive safely over our roads and bridges.

Pawlenty didn’t like the 5-cent gas tax hike, as well as the 3.5 cents to pay off borrowing, calling it “simply too large.” Yet, DFL authors more than compromised to find a bill all can accept — including Pawlenty ally Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Other provisions he also didn’t like, such as imposing a 0.25 percent sales tax for transit in the seven-county metro area without a referendum vote. As public safety is state government’s top chore, and safe transportation is public safety, we wonder why a vote is so important there when Pawlenty signed off quickly on allowing a sales tax for the Minnesota Twins stadium without a vote?

No, we see Gov. Pawlenty’s veto as yet another example of his refusal to budge one iota off a “no new taxes” pledge he agreed to five years ago. The state of our roads and bridges is way beyond playing politics between Democrats and Republicans. Failure to override will probably end any further action this year. A veto has to start in the House, where the bill passed only one vote short of a veto-proof margin, and we urge that now is the time to budge — or rather, bulldoze — the governor off his pledge.