Obama’s Double Dare on Highway/Transit
By: TurnerGPA Staff
“Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home,” Obama said last night in his SOTU.
A senior administration official has confirmed the White House wants roughly $200 billion of the war savings to be used to pay for a long-term highway/transit reauthorization bill.
This won’t help solve the deficit problem because it takes funds that would have been spent (borrowed) on military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and redirects them to transportation. But it would solve the bookkeeping problem Congress faces in trying to pass a reauthorization within the constraints of the Budget Control Act. It may require a waiver of the House rule against any further transfers of general revenue to the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), however.
In the meantime, Senate Finance Committee staff indicate they may have identified as much as $17 billion that could be used to help underwrite the costs of the Boxer 2-year Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) reauthorization. As usual, they are not offering any details.
The Senate Banking/Housing/Urban Affairs Committee plans to mark up the transit title of the Boxer bill next week.
The following are rumors, but are certainly worth noting.
Senator Boxer has been in discussions this week with the White House about how to move her 2-year highway/transit bill. President Obama’s promise in the SOTU to streamline project processing through Executive Branch action to revise transportation regulations could help deflect criticism that the Boxer bill won’t last long enough for its proposed process improvements to be implemented.
It is possible the Senate Finance Committee may mark up the revenue title for the Boxer bill as soon as next week, although this has not been confirmed. That would claim offsets for the Boxer bill before final choices are made about how to pay for the payroll tax/UI/Medicare doc fix bill. The Senate Finance revenue title could include language that would apply some of the war savings to transportation. The White House wants a longer reauthorization timeframe, but will settle for the Boxer 2-yr if that’s all that can pass.
Republicans are not likely to support action to apply war savings to anything other than deficit reduction or other defense programs, but such action by Senate Finance would put pressure on the House to come up with a viable alternative to pay for the Mica 5-year proposal.
The President indicated he wanted to use half the peace dividend to rebuild America, but so far that is being interpreted to mean solely surface transportation – not Clean Water Act or other infrastructure.
Turner GPA is a leading D.C.-based national lobbying and government affairs firm dedicated to delivering cutting edge policy advocacy for the manufacturing, defense, aerospace, health and energy industries. Members of our professional policy team can be reached at (202) 466-2511. We are also on the Web at www.turnergpa.com.
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