Congressional Update

The law that authorizes the federal government to collect gas taxes and spend them on highways and transit last expired in July. Normally, Congress extends the law for six years, but it is currently gridlocked and so in July it extended it through the end of October.

The Senate offered a six-year bill, but only had enough money to fund it for three years. Lacking a similar bill, the House passed the three-month extension and the Senate went along.

Now, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is rumored to have a six-year bill, or possibly a three-year bill. A minor stumbling block is that Republicans were proposing to cut spending for bicycles, which left Democrats incensed. A bigger stumbling block is that there is still no consensus about where the money is going to come from to cover the $12 billion to $15 billion annual deficits in the bill, as Congress is not willing to either raise gas taxes or reduce spending.

If I may clarify, I’m talking about the drops; not the stormy rush! Now, the aforementioned situation may be right at an angle wherein you should put it on 5mg cialis tablets a dry place, but you need to speak to your doctor first. price tadalafil tablets It not only makes them feel embarrassed, but also disturbs their sexual life. Very often due to reasons like pressure at the work place, family problems, order viagra levitra conflict with the partner, stress, anxiety, depression, childbirth, etc. a woman may experience diminished sex drive. In addition, a mother receiving chiropractic care will be less inclined to need pharmaceuticals for her pain or dysfunction, which is particularly important for women who are breastfeeding. generic cialis in canada So it appears almost certain that Congress will once again pass a short-term extension. The question is: how short? Some members of Congress don’t want to have to deal with this issue during the 2016 election year, so they will press to extend the law only until the end of December.

Others point to the fact that the Department of Transportation says there is enough money in the Highway Trust Fund to last until next June (mainly because most of the money is spent during the summer construction season). So they want to put off consideration until then.

The decision Congress makes–to extend the current law until December or next June–will signal how serious it is about passing a long-term bill. If it extends until June, it will probably pass another extension at that time in order to avoid making a major decision during an election year. If it extends only to December, it is likely that Congressional leadership will press hard for a long-term bill before the end of this year.

Of course, this only illustrates the folly of turning such major decisions over to politicians. What good is a political system that is paralyzed half the time because every other year is an election year? What good is a political system that focuses more on covering deficit spending with accounting tricks rather than making sure that actual revenues cover actual expenses? What good is a political system that ignores the fact that 20 to 40 percent of the money it spends is wasted, at least as far as transportation goes, in order to pay off special interests? The answers, of course, are not much.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

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