Congress to work on $500 billion transportation bill
It's that time again, transportation leaders in Congress will soon begin to piece together another wasteful appropriations bill to fund projects the country doesn't really need:
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee wants $500 billion over the next six years for the nation's roads, transit and high-speed rail, according to a blueprint of the bill that committee leadership hopes to pass before the current highway authorization expires at the end of September.As you might have guessed, transportation bills serve as little more a way to fund pet projects and as a method of changing behavior by getting people off the road. In case you don't remember, the last transportation bill included 6,371 pork projects, among them the Gravina Island Bridge (the "Bridge to Nowhere").
[...]
[A] copy of the 17-page proposal (pdf) shows that [Jim] Oberstar and ranking member John Mica (R-Fla.) are calling for a $337 billion investment in highway construction, $100 billion for public transit and $50 billion for President Obama's vision of a nationwide high-speed rail system. The remaining $13 billion is for a variety of smaller initiatives.
[...]
The $500 billion bill is significantly more than the current $286 billion authorization and the $236 billion that the Highway Trust Fund revenues can afford, according to the blueprint. Still, the draft does not lay out how Congress will find the cash to pay for the spending -- something that has been a major concern among lawmakers, DOT officials and transportation trade groups.
I'm willing to bet that they're eventually going to sell this as another stimulus bill. At what point do we begin putting common sense and realize that the more money we spend, the greater the damage done to our economy?
