House Transportation Chairman Jim Oberstar (D.-Minn.), the congressman notorious for his pork-barrel bike paths, wants to raise taxes to pay for bridge reconstruction in the wake of the I-35W collapse in Minneapolis. I say hog wash.

President Bush articulated a message yesterday that too few members of Congress are able to grasp:

One can meet priorities if they set priorities. The problem in Congress is they have trouble actually focusing on priorities. Appropriators take their title seriously and they all feel like they got to appropriate, which means there’s a myriad of priorities. So the role of the President, it seems to me, is to help Congress focus on that which is important.

Oberstar can’t fathom losing money for bike paths, so instead he wants to raise the gasoline tax by 5 cents per gallon, costing even more at the pump and adding to the national average of 46 cents per gallon in taxes. My colleagues at the Heritage Foundation have estimated that higher gas taxes, combined with other Democrat energy policies, could mean that gas tops $6 per gallon in less than 10 years.

Listening to Oberstar, you’d think we have no other choice but to raise taxes. There is an alternative, however. As Bush said yesterday, Congress needs to learn how to prioritize. And that just might mean cutting back on bike paths and mass transit. But good luck convincing a stubborn liberal like Jim Oberstar.

UPDATE — 1:45 p.m.: I forgot to link to Captain Ed’s post from yesterday about polling data on a gasoline tax increase. There are some other interesting numbers about the Minneapolis bridge collapse as well.