As New Yorkers return from their summer vacations, they may be unhappy to be reminded that 12% of New York State’s 17,361 bridges are listed as “structurally deficient” by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Thirty-three of these bridges, including the Brooklyn Bridge, are in Manhattan.

With the collapse of the Minneapolis-St. Paul I-35W bridge earlier this month, another bridge listed as “structurally deficient,” worries over the number of aging bridges have erupted into a call for congressional action.

Senator Clinton has proposed a $10 billion “emergency repair fund” to fix the neediest roads and bridges, as well as proposals to expand public transit, and inexplicably, to improve the nation’s broadband access. She has also endorsed DOT Secretary Peters’ suggestion for a commission to update states’ engineering standards.

Senator Schumer, New York’s other Democratic senator, would simply double the amount of money for infrastructure repair in the DOT budget to $10 billion from $5 billion.

Rep. James Oberstar, a Democrat from Minnesota, is the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He will chair hearings on deficient bridges on September 5.

Mr. Oberstar wants to raise the gasoline tax by 5 cents a gallon for three years in order to repair bridges and roads, although no one seriously expects the tax to disappear after three years. This “three-year tax” would raise $25 billion. Funds would supposedly be spent only on road and bridge repair, distributed entirely on the basis of need and public safety, with no earmarks — diversions to other purposes — allowed.

In an unusual show of support, Rep. Don Young, Alaska Republican and former chairman of the Transportation Committee, agrees.

According to Mr. Young, “We have to, as a Congress, grasp this problem. And yes, I would even suggest, fund this problem with a tax.”

However, another Republican, Rep. John Mica, ranking minority member on the House Transportation Committee, wants more involvement from the private sector. In a speech on August 8, he declared, “We must find ways to better leverage the taxpayer’s dollar and we must take advantage of the investment potential that exists in the private sector. I’m disappointed that our current Democrat leaders in Congress have thus far failed to utilize public-private partnerships as one tool to encourage investment in our infrastructure.”

The collapsing-bridge debate has become inextricably linked with partisan bickering over earmarks. Some House Republicans are asking Mr. Oberstar why, instead of disallowing earmarks on his proposal, the Transportation Committee isn’t looking for ways to cut the $633.5 million in earmarks out of DOT’s FY 2008 budget and use this to repair infrastructure.

Never mind that the Republicans had their own problems with earmarks, with Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere” as one of the most memorable examples.

Forget earmarks. The real issue is this: why should federal funding be used to maintain facilities for which the states are responsible? A national gasoline tax to pay for maintaining the neediest bridges, as Mr. Oberstar proposes, poses a problem of “moral hazard.” Since states know they would benefit from the tax as long as they did not maintain their infrastructure, they are encouraged to spend their own funds on low-priority projects, while qualifying for national funds for the more important ones.

The Minneapolis bridge did not collapse due to a lack of state funds, but due to a misallocation of resources. Minnesota’s gasoline tax, at 20 cents per gallon, is about average. Minnesota’s $2 billion transportation budget, of which $629 million comes from the gas tax, is largely spent on the state’s light rail network, and its infrastructure is neglected.

A former senator and prospective presidential candidate, Fred Thompson, realized this when he wrote, “Only in government is it even possible to think that you could be rewarded with a bigger budget for totally messing things up in the first place.”

Mr. Thompson continued, “Why don’t we let states determine which infrastructure problems are their priority? Are bridge repairs a priority in Arizona? Alaska? Hawaii? Maybe, but let’s let the people decide what needs fixing, when, and how they want to pay for it — taxes, bonds, or tolls, for example.”

For New Yorkers, bridges are being translated into a new three-letter word: tax. New Yorkers already pay some of the highest taxes in the country. One might think those taxes would be sufficient to maintain the state’s bridges — and a good deal more.

But Washington now has a better idea: Collect more taxes in New York to pay for better bridges in Minnesota and every other state in the country.

Two years ago Americans reacted with dismay at Washington’s paying for a “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska that Alaskans refused to pay for themselves.

The same politicians now seem to think it’s fine for Washington to pay for thousands of bridges that state governments have seen fit to neglect. And taxpayers are left in the same state as before: all the poorer.

Ms. Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.