Breaking News: Congress passes 3-month highway, transit aid bill

FoxNews.com ^ | July 30, 2015 | Associated Press

[Biggirl]

Congress sent President Barack Obama a three-month bill to keep highway and transit money flowing to states on Thursday, one day before the deadline for a cutoff of funds.

[Old Sarge]

So do we get to read what’s in it now?

[driftdiver]

You mean a bill to return the tax money taken from drivers?

[PapaBear3625]

The long-term highway bill contained an amendment to resurrect the Export-Import bank. The short-term bill which passed apparently doesn't have that.

So the Export-Import bank is still dead.

[Yogafist]

Brinkmanship works better if you have a holiday like Christmas to use as an excuse.

[smokingfrog]

Getting too much heat now after the Cruz & McConnell flap and they want to go on summer recess.

[Amendment10]

You mean a bill to return the tax money taken from drivers?

You’re spot-on driftdiver!

In fact, if you haven’t seen the excerpt below you might find it interesting. A previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers, nothing in Section 8 justifying federal spending for intrastate highways.

“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

In other words, unconstitutional but vote-winning federal highway funding should never have left the states in the first place. In fact, this funding is arguably another example of the post-17th Amendment ratification Senate not doing its job to protect the states by killing unconstitutional House appropriations bills.

[mulligan]

More short term stupidity.

[Norseman]

>>More short term stupidity.<<

No, this one is a win for the good guys. The Senate alternative was an unfunded long term bill that ran 1,000 pages and included a reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank, from what I’ve read.

This is the Senate capitulating. And that’s a good thing.