ClydeR
07-03-2012, 10:47 AM
WASHINGTON -- Last week, lawmakers in Congress approved a bill that keeps highway and transit spending at current levels for the next two years, but there was a catch: They came up nearly $20 billion short. Rather than cut spending or raise taxes to make up the difference, they tapped the U.S. Treasury, something they'd done three times already.
Transportation and budget experts say lawmakers can't have it both ways: The once-self-sustaining mechanism for highway spending no longer works the way it was intended.
For half a century, revenue from federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel paid for the nation's highway projects. But since 2008, lawmakers have transferred $35 billion in general funds into the Highway Trust Fund to keep it from going bankrupt.
Negotiators who sorted out the differences between the Republican-majority House of Representatives and the Democratic-controlled Senate call it a necessary compromise; fiscal conservatives call it deficit spending.
More... (http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/02/2878902/federal-highway-fund-is-running.html)
Just make the interstates into toll roads. Problem solved.
Transportation and budget experts say lawmakers can't have it both ways: The once-self-sustaining mechanism for highway spending no longer works the way it was intended.
For half a century, revenue from federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel paid for the nation's highway projects. But since 2008, lawmakers have transferred $35 billion in general funds into the Highway Trust Fund to keep it from going bankrupt.
Negotiators who sorted out the differences between the Republican-majority House of Representatives and the Democratic-controlled Senate call it a necessary compromise; fiscal conservatives call it deficit spending.
More... (http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/02/2878902/federal-highway-fund-is-running.html)
Just make the interstates into toll roads. Problem solved.