I guess when you're visiting Lake Charles there are a couple of things that you just have to do. You have to go get a po-boy from Darrell's. You have to check out the casinos along the lake. And, if you happen to be a politician, you have to make time to promise to build a new bridge over the Calcasieu River for motorists on I-10.

President Joe Biden was in Lake Charles yesterday and we know he did at least one of those things. He did promise to build a new I-10 bridge over the Calcasieu River. The caveat, only if his multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan passes. With that caveat, you could hear the collective sighs and the muttering of "here we go again" under the breath of just about everyone who lives in Southwest Louisiana.

According to a report published by the Louisiana Radio Network, here is what President Biden had to say about what "the new bridge" would look like.

One with six lanes, new interchanges, that’s safer, reduces congestion, it shouldn’t be this hard or take this long to fix a bridge that is this important.

The President went on to say that the I-10 bridge over the Calcasieu is one of 45,000 bridges in the nation that are structurally deficient. That's got to make the drivers and passengers in the estimated 80,000 vehicles that use the bridge every day just ooze with confidence.

Look, we all know there needs to be a new bridge in Lake Charles. We all know it's going to cost a lot of money. We all know that just about every politician that visits the area promises a new bridge. We all know, those promises are just empty words that always have a caveat.

Many of Louisiana's Republican lead congressional delegations say that while they agree there needs to be a new bridge in Lake Charles, they're not willing to support President Biden's proposal. Instead, Republican lawmakers have introduced their own infrastructure plan that comes with a price tag that is a few billion dollars less than what the President has proposed.

Meanwhile, while the politicos argue the details we will just sit patiently waiting for either a new bridge to be built or the old bridge to fall over. Seems like a great time for a glass of wine, doesn't it?

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