The responses to Representative John Mica’s plan to reduce transportation spending to affordable levels are shrill and bombastic. “1.4 million infrastructure jobs lost due to republican transportation budget short sightedness” claims a Florida newspaper. It’s the “road to ruin” says Oregon Representative (and ranking minority member on the Highways and Transit Subcommittee) Peter Defazio. Many others decry Mica’s proposals to cut or merge their favorite slush funds programs.
Let’s look at that 1.4 million jobs claim. The paper said Mica’s plan would “eliminate one million four hundred thousand jobs with the cuts to be made to our transit funding.” That is laughable. Page 18 of APTA’s Public Transportation Fact Book says the transit industry employes about 402,000 people. Federal funding of about $5.2 billion in 2010 represents less than 10 percent of total transit industry expenses of about 57 billion (page 22 of APTA Fact Book).
Mica’s presentation suggested that transit and highways would each be cut by about the same amount. Cutting federal funding by 30 percent thus represents a 2.7 percent drop in transit funding. If no other funds are found to replace the decline in federal funds and transit agencies find no ways of saving money other than to lay off personnel, a 2.7 percent drop in funds may result in a loss of 11,000 jobs. The Florida paper was off by a mere 1 million 389 thousand jobs, or about 12,600 percent.
