The Antiplanner » Tag » highway trust fund

Tag Archives: highway trust fund

Congress Should Get Out of the Transportation Business

By | | Transportation
Leave a comment

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has bravely proposed to pass a three-month transportation bill. Three more months, he says, will give Congress a chance to figure out a long-term solution. The only problem is that Congress had three months three months ago and did nothing.


Would you buy a used transportation system from these people?

Meanwhile, Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) have proposed to increase gas taxes by 12 cents a gallon. Considering that the gas tax hasn’t been increased in more than 20 inflation-filled years, this would seem to make sense.

Continue reading →

Cut Saturday Mail to Fund Highways?

By | | Transportation
4 Comments

The Highway Trust Fund will be out of money in a few months, mainly because Congress insists on spending more than it takes in. To avert this supposed crisis, Republican leaders are proposing to cut Saturday deliveries of mail and use the savings to replenish the trust fund.

There’s actually a tiny grain of Constitutional sense behind this proposal. The original legal justification for federal involvement in highways, back when members of Congress actually cared about such things, was that the Constitution authorizes Congress “to establish Post Offices and post Roads.” If the “post roads” aren’t paying for themselves, then who better to pay for them than the post offices?

In this sense, the Republican proposal is slightly more rational than President Obama’s proposal to use the increased revenues from a corporate income tax reform that will eliminate loopholes but reduce corporate tax rates. The administration predicts reducing rates will reduce corporate tax obligations in the long run but closing loopholes will increase revenues in the short run (interesting how Obama is promising corporations lower taxes after he is out of office in exchange for higher taxes when he is still in office). Obama wants to use some of those increased revenues to supplement the Highway Trust Fund.

Continue reading →

Transportation Empowerment Act

By | | News commentary, Transportation
6 Comments

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and two other senators and joined Representative Tom Graves (R-GA) and 18 other representatives in introducing the Transportation Empowerment Act. This bill would phase out most federal involvement in surface transportation, including 80 percent of the federal gas tax, over five years. In the meantime, federal funds would be given to the states as “block grants” with few strings attached.

As the Antiplanner reads the bill, funds would be distributed to the states using the same highway formulas now found in MAP-21, the 2012 transportation bill. The transit formulas are dropped. However, if a state determines that the highway funds it receives are in “excess of the needs of the state” for highways, that state may use those funds for any surface transportation program including transit and intercity rail.

The bill limits distributions in the first year to about $38 billion, which is the current estimate of gas tax revenues in that year. However, if revenues fall short of that estimate, the bill states that no more funds may be distributed than are actually collected. The gas tax and distributed funds are cut in half in the second year, then by approximately 33 percent per year over the next three years.

Continue reading →

Federal Highway Funds Frozen

By | | News commentary, Transportation
27 Comments

The distribution of federal highway revenues to the states ended on Sunday night thanks to Congress’ failure to extend surface transportation funding. This means that transit agencies and highway departments may temporarily lack funds to pay their bills.

Democrats in Congress had proposed to extend funding through the end of the year as a part of a bill extending unemployment compensation. But Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning objected to the unemployment bill, since there was no money to pay for it. So the House passed a bill extending transportation funding for four weeks, but Bunning objected to that as well. Bunning agreed yesterday to drop his objections, but the funds will remain frozen for a few more days.

Continue reading →