Today the House Passed H.R. 2353, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015

Statement

Today the House passed H.R. 2353, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015 by a vote of 387 to 35, which authorizes a short-term extension of federal highway funding through July 31st of this year. There is no new spending associated with this legislation since the Highway Trust Fund that pays for these spending projects will not run dry until the end of July. Without this bill funding for new highway repair projects would have ended on May 31st. This bill is a mere stopgap measure while Congress debates a long term fix for the problem of how to best fund repairs for our roads and bridges, and accordingly I cast my vote in favor but without enthusiasm given it is but a stopgap measure. I think what is realistically going to happen here is that they will come back again in July with still another stopgap measure that will take us until year end and wait on the Ways and Means Committee for work on corporate tax reform. As the debate continues, I want to highlight a few of the principles I would like to see addressed in a long-term highway bill.

The first principle is that basic accounting dictates that you don't spend more than you take in, but that is exactly what the trust fund has been doing. In fact, since 2008, taxpayers have had to bail out the Highway Trust Fund to the tune of $65 billion. Often what will happen is that Congress will get to a point in the year where the trust fund is about to run dry and come up with some creative accounting to make sure that construction stays on track. What doesn't happen is any meaningful reform. Starting with an approach that says, "Live within your means," in regards to highway spending would be a good first step in protecting taxpayers' interests.

Secondly, I think we should limit gas taxes to their original purpose of spending on roads and bridges. Trust funds were created for a reason. Their tax was administered and sold to taxpayers for a given purpose, and I think we should honor that promise and purpose. The Highway Trust Fund collects federal gas taxes (currently at 18.4 cents a gallon of gas) from drivers, but spends on projects like mass transit and bike paths that don't contribute to the fund. If you're running $16 billion per year structural deficits, spending $10 billion on projects like these, however well intended or needed, should be dealt with separately from the trust fund which was put into place with a promise on how the gas tax would be used. To that end, I introduced a bill, H.R. 1551, the Highway Restoration Act of 2015, which would fix this part of our highway funding problem by phasing out this spending on mass transit over a period of five years. I think this proposal and others like it should at least be part of the conversation going forward.

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