Federal Highway Fund Running Out of Money

[struggle4progress]

Source: NYT

By DAVID STOUT
Published: September 5, 2008

WASHINGTON — An important account in the federal Highway Trust Fund will run out of money this month, which could hamper completion of road and bridge construction projects across the country, Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said on Friday.

Because the fund is draining away so fast, the Transportation Department will have to delay payments for the local projects, or reduce their amount, Ms. Peters said at a mid-day news conference.

Ms. Peters said her department will begin to dole out money from the fund on a pro-rated basis. For instance, if there are only enough funds to cover 80 percent of the payment requests the department receives for federally financed local projects, the agency will pay only 80 percent of each request ...

State transportation officials reacted to the announcement with alarm. The development will have “grave repercussions for the states, for hundreds of thousands of workers in the construction industry and the driving public,” said John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials ...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/us/06highway.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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McCain's Economic Plan: Where's the Rest of It?
September 05, 2008 04:01 PM ET | Rick Newman | Permanent Link

... Earlier this year, McCain pleaded for relief over the summer months by suspending the 18.4-cent federal gas tax—but he hasn't said if he'll pursue that in 2009, or if it's just for election-year summers. If there ever were a gas-tax holiday, it would leave a vast hole in the Highway Trust Fund and other programs and bleed more, not less, red ink in Washington ...

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/flowchart/2008/9/5/mccains-economic-plan-wheres-the-rest-of-it.html

[lligrd]

1. Palin's Answer: EBAY - Bridge For Sale nt

[lapfog_1]

2. It's a good thing that we can simply re-institute the gas tax

and rapidly rebuild the Highway Fund!!!

oh, wait.

[Thothmes]

10. I do not think the Federal gas tax

has been suspended. It was a McCain proposal but Congress never took action on the idea. The big problems is it is a flat per gallon tax. If people buy less gallons of gas, amount of tax collected is going down. Maybe it should be a percentage of total sale price instead. As price of gas goes up so does tax. Just an idea.

[KansDem]

3. Too bad this administration flushed $3 trillion down the Iraqi toilet...

Just think what this country could've done with that...

Education
Health care
Infrastructure
Job creation
Start-up money for new businesses
Environment

If anyone can tell me what we're getting back from our "investment" in the Iraq invasion, let me know. I'd like to know why our involvement in Iraq is so much more important than the areas listed above...

[Thothmes]

11. You are right of course, but

all of that money was borrowed. Do you think that our Congress would willingly borrow three trillion dollars for those worthwhile programs. I do not think that would happen. They would continue to rely on current taxes collected to fund these programs at a level that would be supported by tax dollars available. JMO

[Pete2069]

4. Another deceitful plan of Cheney

This is the planned method and policy which Bush will use to
explain why he is selling our roads and other social programs
to private corporations and foreign countries.
How can our nation survive , when they has/are sending our
manufacturing plants , jobs , resources and farms overseas.

A country which can not manufacture the products or grow the
food they need , will fall into a third world dying countries.

Alaska is a great source of resources for foreign countries ,
like China , India , Japan , Korea , Britain and other
countries. But what about the manufacturing plants.
 

[liberal N proud]

6. Ding, Ding, Ding

We have a winner.
They have a crony waiting to snap up Americas roadways.

[Festivito]

14. Concur. /nt

[happygoluckytoyou]

5. so you are saying we have money for a BRIDGE TO NOWHERE??? .....

as NFL Player MICHAEL VICK will attest to ..... THE ODDS WILL BE ON THE PITBULL.....

however there is a need for some more detailed comparison-------->

1) a pitbull with not international knowledge has the good sense NOT to run for Vice President
2) a pitbull understands that it IS a bitch
3) if you have sex with one of them, and you still have your BALLS, it was a pitbull
4) pitbulls don't get on John THE BUSH REPUBLICAN McCain's MILF list
5) pitbull wouldn't make sense being in a wet T-shirt contest with Cindy and Sarah
6) pitbull doesn't spread it's legs with husband's partner
7) pitbull teaches pups sex education at the kennel
8) pitbull does not believe that man coexisted with dinosaur
9) pitbull has babies in groups of 5 or.... oops.... nevermind
10) pitbull goes for the throat, soccer mom goes much lower

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO HELP ME WITH THIS LIST.... the Toilet Reader Version should hit the rolls soon

RIDDLE..... how many alaskan REPUBLICANS does it take to screw in a lightbulb ? ?
ANSWER..... sorry.... alaskan REPUBLICANS don't screw in lightbulbs... they screw in High School Hockey Locker Rooms, because they haven't attended any SEX EDUCATION classes......
Signature lines are currently turned off due to high traffic.

[Skink]

7. I thought that's waht the social Security trust fund was for?

[superconnected]

8. But we can donate 1billion for the war in georgia

[bronxiteforever]

9. Great Point

[SteelPenguin]

12. You Liberals and your obession with collective responsibilty

First you want the government to provide health care to everyone, now you want the government to build roads for you too!?!?!?

Build them yourselves! Sell them to private companies to maintain and turn them into toll bridges and toll roads!!!!

Collective responsibility. Pah!

We shouldn't even have fire departments. If you want fire coverage you should have to pay for it. Schools? All should be private. Why should I pay taxes to educate children!

Collective responsibilty. Pah!

I got mine, so fuck you!

oh and :sarcasm:

[Billy Burnett]

13. Right. If it's too expensive people will open other companies to compete for the lowest bid.

:rofl:

[kurth_]

15. And who ran it for the last 8 years???

No wonder.

[Igel]

17. Doesn't matter, it's a year-to-year thing.

They usually leave a few % alone as a cushion, and end the year in the black. Previous years worked out fine. This year is exceptional, and a lot of people share the blame.

This year they budgeted a greater percentage than usual, plus the carry over. It was part of the jobs program, they said; by building roads, and committing all the funds we could to it, we'd help unemployment. Fine reasoning, bad budgeting. As luck would have it, gas consumption is down so revenues are down, and the House and Senate budget committees lost their bet. * didn't veto the mega-appropriations bill over this. Perhaps he should have, but it's a trivially small part of the budget to hold up the entire thing over, and the bet looked good.

Appropriate steps: (1) strip out all earmarks from the appropriations bill retroactively; many of the earmarks aren't used, because they're made high priority by Congress, require matching funds, and the states ignore them. But the money's committed and can't be used for other things. (2) cut back on what's appropriated; you know there are projects out there that haven't been started or which can be mothballed for a few months. (3) Budget emergency money for the program; Congress has had a while to do this, and hasn't. It knew about this before recess. All appropriations bills start in the House.

[Doctor_J]

16. No problem - just sell the roads to the Chinese

or blame it on the Dems