At first glance, a proposed $400 billion transportation bill from House Republicans appears to be more reasonable than President Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill or even Senate Republicans’ $568 billion alternative infrastructure plan. In fact, the latter two plans are supposed to be on top of Congress’ periodic reauthorization of routine highway and transit spending, while the House Republican plan is supposed to be for that reauthorization.
As such, the Republican plan represents such a massive increase in spending over previous years that it is almost as if it was written by the Democrats. The 2015 “FAST Act” spent $305 billion over five years, or $61 billion a year. That in itself was too much because the Highway Trust Fund collected less than $212 billion in highway user fees during those five years, so an additional $93 billion came out of deficit spending.
Considering the pandemic, revenues over the next five years aren’t likely to be much greater. Yet House Democrats proposed last year to spend $495 billion over five years, a huge increase that would require a tripling of deficit spending over the previous five years. The Republican response is a $400 billion bill, which is still a doubling of deficit spending. Instead of being ashamed of this, Republicans bragged that they are proposing “the largest percentage increase for surface transportation programs in the last quarter-century.” Continue reading
