Posted on 11/19/2016 11:54:49 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
President-elect Donald Trump said throughout his campaign for the White House that he wants major investments in U.S. infrastructure, calling for $1 trillion on infrastructure projects during his presidency.
He reiterated the point in his victory speech last Wednesday. “We’re going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none.”
However, major infrastructure bills are challenging pieces of legislation to pass, especially since Congress changed little in the election, says Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. “Pretty much all the same players are still there,” he says.
Like all spending bills, the challenge is finding funding, says analyst Jonathan Starks, COO of FTR. “Lots of candidates have called for good investment in infrastructure, but the trouble is coming up with mechanisms to pay for it,” he said. “So far we haven’t come up with that plan.”
Trump says he would incentivize private businesses to invest in infrastructure projects by offering them tax incentives. Such privatization of U.S. roads could lead to more tolls, Spencer says.
“The closest Trump came to suggesting how things might be paid for is through privatizing. That sounds good to the financial community but it generally doesn’t play out that well on Main Street — it simply means more tolls,” he said. OOIDA is “open to sustainable funding that’s fair to highway users. The tried and true mechanism of paying for roads and bridges is through fuel taxes. If that’s ruled out, the dilemma gets bigger and harder to resolve.”
The American Trucking Associations said last Wednesday it intends to work with Trump to help make an infrastructure bill a reality. “During the campaign, he highlighted the need to create jobs, and recognized that improving our nation’s infrastructure is critical to strengthening the economy,” ATA President Chris Spear said in a statement. “As the industry that moves nearly 70 percent of our nation’s freight and is a key economic driver, we look forward to working with President-elect Trump on a host of issues, including long-term, sustainable infrastructure funding.”
Lane Kidd, head of the carrier coalition the Trucking Alliance, says Congress could act as early as next year on a major infrastructure funding bill. Kidd also says the funding source is unclear, yet paramount to such legislation. “The big question is how will it be paid for? I think Trump at one point hinted at bonds being one avenue. Bonds have proven to be an effective way to finance infrastructure by borrowing against future fuel tax revenue,” he says. “It will be interesting to see what would be supported by trucking companies. We always want better roads, until we look around and see who’s going to pay for them.”
Readers continue to react to regulation-related campaign promises
Part of Trump’s appeal to truckers was no doubt his campaign message channeling the notion that regulations had piled on industries across the spectrum, hampering economic productivity. What in the way of trucking regulations should be under the eye of a Trump presidency? Readers responded to a call for viewpoint on their message to the President-elect as the transition to his administration began. Catch a grab-bag of those responses in the podcast at the top of the mailbag playlist above and via the player below.
For Overdrive readers, the top areas of concern voiced in messages to the podcast line — 530-408-6423 — mirrored those at the top of the top-issues polling conducted here in recent weeks. Readers called for increased attention to and revision or repeal of, variously, the electronic-logging-device mandate, the proposed speed limiter mandate, the inflexibility of the 14-hour rule and 30-minute break in the hours of service and more. —Todd Dills contributed to this report.
The Missouri DOT has been criticized for spending gas tax receipts on bike paths, airport approaches, etc. No doubt the same is happening elsewhere.
IMO, today’s construction of roads isn’t as good as the construction of the roads I grew up on.
I was raised rural in Wisconsin. Those roads went thru hot muggy summers & cold, brittle winters. I remember one winter when our thermometers said —70 & that was long before the words ‘wind chill factor’. Every vehicle we had had a head bolt heater & was connected to power every night overnight.
However, we had gravel roads that had used oil spread on them & they didn’t wash out in bad rain storms. We had roads that handled farm equipment & milk trucks every single day of the week. In the winter, the snowplows scraped them well.
Today, the worthiness of road construction makes me cringe. I live rural east of Reno, Nevada. Alot of money was spent to build a new connector between Carson City & so Reno. Called I-580. That road was built since I moved here 11 years ago & they spent the major part of this past summer of 2016 repaving a large amount of it. The concrete was coming apart.
WHY? The basic parts of concrete haven’t changed. This makes me so mad, when taxes are spent in a manner that gives us shoddy roads & we have to keep spending more money for more shoddy work.
All the states are crying because of the electric cars-—which pay no per gallon gas taxes to support the roads & the high MPG cars which don’t use as much fuel.
Fine-—TAX the electric cars with a separate tax. EVERY single state has registration records that can be scanned to accomplish this. They are using the roads, but they are not paying fuel taxes to support the roads.
For the high mileage cars, use the EPA mileage numbers & tax them extra. Add it to their registration, so they cannot skip paying the bill.
I drive a truck & don’t get the best mileage, but this truck is a workhorse for me. Accept the low MPG and every state I have had the truck in charges me extra because ‘my truck is heavier’ than the new cars. My truck is 40 years old & I still drive it. The new ones cost over $65,000 & they are even heavier.
I agree with you. Another way to pay for it that I like is through the dissolution of federal agencies and redirect their budgets to these programs. That coupled with the gas tax removal would be great.
yup. audit the highway fund.
It already is. Gas tax.
Indeed we pay enough taxes however most states like here in Ca puts the money in the general fund to pay for the illegals goodies.
Poole is from reason.org, which is supposedly a libertarian organization
Interstates are not built by governments. Contractors bid for the work
Minor maintenance is the limitation of dot involvement
Media loves toll roads, especially every five feet like in Illinois. Government can handle your money better than you.
What is your point ? Go look up all the rules about how those contractors have to operate, BECAUSE it is a government contract. If it is not a government contract, but something a private business donates to the public, many of those rules can be bypassed.
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