Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced agreement on a bill to increase highway spending by 32 percent. The 2015 transportation bill included $225 billion for highways over five years. The announced agreement is to increase this to $303 billion for the next five years. The agreement said nothing about transit spending.
From 2015 to 2019, revenues into the highway portion of the Highway Trust Fund were about $37 billion a year, so at least $40 billion of the $225 billion allocated in 2015 was deficit spending. Due to the pandemic, revenues are not likely to significantly increase in the next five years, so increasing spending to $303 billion would nearly triple deficit spending.
This is a bad precedent to set considering that Republicans are trying to reduce deficit spending on transit, Amtrak, and other infrastructure. When Senate Republicans responded to President Biden’s proposal for a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan with a plan that would spend only $568 billion, Biden came back with a $1.7 trillion bill. But the White House and Congressional Democrats won’t take Republicans seriously if Republicans agree to triple deficit spending on roads. Continue reading
