Besieged by fiscal conservatives for deficit spending and by the transit lobby for eliminating a guaranteed source of transit subsidies, Speaker of the House John Boehner has postponed consideration of the transportation bill (which Roll Call calls the “transit bill” even though transit gets only about 20 percent of the money). In a post on the Cato Institute’s blog yesterday, the Antiplanner makes some suggestions for fixing the bill.
There are really three ways that House Republicans could try to compromise with Senate Democrats. One would be to include earmarks and other pork barrel in the bill, which Democrats and many Republicans love but Tea Party Republicans hate. The second would be to give more money to transit at the expense of highways–and in particular to allow transit to keep a share of federal gas taxes.
The third way is to spend more than the government is taking in. The 2005 bill provided guaranteed spending every year, but due to the recession gas tax revenues declined after 2007, leading to deficit spending. When House Republicans made a proposal last summer to reign in spending to be no more than revenues, Democrats wailed that the bill would cost thousands of jobs.
