No, highway funds are completely separate from the federal budget General Fund.
See post #31 with link.
Posted on 08/10/2005 12:45:46 PM PDT by janetjanet998
Legislation Provides Certainty for Caterpillar Customers and Supports Emissions Reduction Efforts)
MONTGOMERY, Ill., Aug. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT - News) today hosted President George W. Bush at the company's manufacturing facility in Montgomery, Illinois, where he signed HR3, the Transportation Equity Act, into law. The measure sets funding levels over the 2004-2009 time frame for critical infrastructure projects
We are honored President Bush is signing this important legislation at our Montgomery location and that House Speaker Denny Hastert is with us today after working so hard to get this bill passed in Congress," said Jerry Palmer, Caterpillar vice president with responsibility for the Wheel Loaders and Excavators Division. "The wheel loaders and excavators made in Montgomery can be seen all around the country, working to build the roads, highways and bridges that are such a vital part of the American economy."
Caterpillar's Montgomery operation is one the company's largest U.S. manufacturing facilities, and it is located in House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's 14th Congressional District.
"This highway bill will not only fuel America's economy by growing jobs, but it addresses the need for a national transportation system suited to the 21st century's economy," said Hastert. "It is estimated that for every one billion dollars we spend on road construction, nearly 48,000 jobs are created. With more than 67 percent of the nation's freight moving on highways, economists believe that our ability to compete internationally is tied to the quality of our infrastructure."
Caterpillar Group President Gerry Shaheen said, "On behalf of our Caterpillar customers, I'd like to thank the President, Speaker Hastert and all those who made this day possible. With this bill, our customers will now have certainty to make business plans and to prepare to get to work on the projects that provide jobs and improve the lives of all Americans who benefit from improved highways, roads and bridges."
In addition to the infrastructure initiatives, the legislation funds programs to reduce emissions from older off-road diesel equipment and sets money aside to retrofit school buses as part of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean School Bus USA initiative. Caterpillar has actively supported the Clean School Bus USA initiative by providing $250,000 in grants in 2004 to help school districts reduce bus emissions. Caterpillar's retrofit technology can also be used as part of a transportation bill program, enabling states to retrofit older construction equipment used in federal highway projects, including machines used in EPA non-attainment areas.
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No, highway funds are completely separate from the federal budget General Fund.
See post #31 with link.
Doesn't matter. Money is fungible.
What *does* matter is that Highway Funds aren't counted to offset our federal budget deficit numbers.
See post #31 with link.
Bull crap. The government doesn't put "trust fund" money under a mattress. It "invests", by law, all trust fund money into "special Treasury bonds", just like Social Security, federal civilian and military pension funds, airport "trust funds", etc..
Your link to #31 doesn't tell me anything. You are misinformed. Totally.
Every dollar spent from the "Highway Trust Fund" will be transferred from the "Federal Debt Held by Federal Government Accounts" to the Public Debt. It won't change the total federal debt but it does add to the debt that we have to try to sell to the public, including the Chinese.
I suggest that you do a little studying. You might want to start with Table #461 of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, at:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/04statab/fedgov.pdf
It doesn't matter. Not even a little bit. Money is fungible (go look it up).
What *does* matter is that Highway Trust Funds don't offset the federal budget deficit numbers.
And by the way, lighten up.
That answer says a lot. A US bond is a claim on future tax revenue. If highway funds are held as bonds, then the money was spent, and replaced with a claim against future revenues, which makes it part of the deficit. Accounting bonds as cash is one method of understating the deficit.
Do I gather correctly from your reply that you're a right-leaning statist?
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Look it up in the table in my #43 and do the math.
I dismissed this statement of yours too glibly, and it might give the impression that you're correct in your remarks above. I should remedy that.
The power to establish post roads was understood by many in the Constitutional debates to mean (1) the power to designate specific road as a "post road", and (2) the right of way to convey mail over said roads. They understood the power not to include the building of roads.
Under the Articles of Confederation, that's exactly how the power of the post was implemented: existing roads were designated "post roads", but new roads were not constructed by the federal government. After the Constitution was ratified, the very first act of Congress was entitled, "an act to establish post-offices and post-roads." It passed in 1799 and was amended in several acts, and finally repealed in 1810. Every version of this bill designated post roads, and no version ever dictated the contstruction of new roads. Other acts were passed at various times removing the designation of "post road" from various roads.
That the language of the Constitution includes the power of building roads is an interpretation. Admittedly, it is the interpretation that has carried the day for most of the history of the Republic--starting with President Jackson, who built roads into Georgia and other parts of the South.
Nevertheless, even with that interpretation, the power to create post roads is limited in scope to roads actually intended for conveyance of the mails. Elliot's commentary on the Constitution in 1833 argues that the power of road-building is inherent in the Constitution, but clarifies that this power is understood to be exercised only in cases of necessity--in particular, when usable state roads do not exist for the purpose.
As for the Interstate Highway system, it was generally agreed that this went beyond the Constitutional authority to build post roads. For this reason, "good road" bills in the late 1800's and early 1900's were ignored or voted down consistently by Congress. An important step toward changing that view was the introduction of Rural Free Delivery, whereby everyone everywhere got mail delivered to his house--making every road, in some sense, a "post road". Note that this exceeds the mandate of the Constitution, which provided for the creation of "post offices", and roads linking them, by effectively designating every address in the nation a "post office". Wilson signed the first highway funding bill in 1916, after years of lobbying, much of it by farmers.
In short, the federal funding of roads and highways is a classic example of mission creep, exceeding the authority granted in the Constitution.
Rubbish. Pure poppycock.
The power is to establish both Post Offices *and* post roads.
By your warped thinking above, Congress would "establish" new post offices by confiscating private buildings. That's just nonsense.
It's your claim. You show your own math.
Although I'm reeling from the force of your logic, I do suggest you read Elliot's Debates, and the other relevant sources. Among the more interesting:
Among the means of advancing the public interest, the occasion is a proper one for recalling the attention of Congress to the great importance of establishing throughout our country the roads and canals which can best be executed under the national authority... And it is a happy reflection, that any defect of constitutional authority which may be encountered, can be supplied in a mode which the Constitution itself has providently pointed out.
James Madison to Congress, Dec 5, 1815
Madison, in urging the Congress to approve projects of road-building, stated that it was an important enough project to justify amending the Constitution in order to grant Congress the necessary authority. That was when Madison was President, of course, but his aspirations began much earlier. Jefferson wrote to him in 1796,
Have you considered all the consequences of your proposition respecting post roads? I view it as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress & their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post office revenues; but the other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a scene of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest. We have thought, hitherto, that the roads of a State could not be so well administered even by the State legislature as by the magistracy of the county, on the spot.
Odd that one of the framers specifically predicted scope creep, whereby the building of "post roads" would lead to the building of any and all roads, and stated the contrary belief that building roads is best left not only the the states, but preferably to the counties.
And of course there's the historical data you also dismissed as "pure poppycock", that highway and road improvement bills were consistently defeated in Congress, starting in the late 1800's, until 1912, and that the grounds of defeat were that such road building would overstep Federal authority. Even those who did build roads believed that it was limited to those roads directly needed for postal use.
But by all means, reject anything that contradicts your statist view, fact or not.
You claimed that Congressional power to "establish" meant only to designate, not build.
Yet that's clearly incorrect for post offices. They have to be built. Since post offices and post roads are contained in the same power clause in the Constitution, it holds that you are likewise incorrect for roads.
Article 1.
Section. 8.
Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
QED
Ah, I see the root of the problem: you can't read. I never said any such thing. What I said was that some participants in the Continental Congress interpreted the clause that way when they debated over it. That's a matter of historical fact.
I also said--but you couldn't read it--that Story argued cogently in 1833 that the clause empowers Congress to build roads, but at the same time argued that this power was limited to cases of necessity, and did not grant carte blanche to build any and all roads at congressional whim.
Your original position was that the power to build post roads implied the right to build any road, anywhere, that Congress wished. That construction was not put on the Constitution prior to 1912, even though some post roads were built prior to that time.
I believe that the first "claim" was yours, i.e. that the Highway Trust Funds "don't offset the federal budget deficit numbers". You made it without any backup. Where's your math?
Second, did you look at the table that I linked to, and did you try to understand it? If not, why should I bother?
I will assume that your intentions are good but that you just have trouble reading government tables. But I will do this just once, and if you come back with trite comments and haven't looked at the table that I linked, I'm finished with you. I have not much patience with ignorance.
Look at table 461. Focus on 2003. You can see that the "deficit" (3rd data column) is the difference between "income" and "outgo". That "income" number includes ALL income - FICA, gasoline taxes, etc..
Now take a look at the fifth data column (Federal Government Accounts). That number represents the total amount held by the various trust funds, including the Highway Trust Fund. For 2003, that amount is $2,846 billion.
Now take a look at the amount by which the latter went up from 2002 to 2003 ($2,658 billion to $2,846 = $188 billion). I would hope that you would agree that if that $188 billion had not been received, the "deficit" would have been $188 billion larger.
Scroll down to Table 468 - Federal Trust Fund Receipts, Outlays, and Balances: 2001 to 2003.
Take a look at the change in balances of all of the trust funds ($2,723 billion from $2,542 billion = $181 billion. I maintain that the Debt Held by Federal Government Accounts includes ALL trust fund balances, including the Highway Trust Fund.
Worried about the difference between $188 and $181? Don't. All government agencies, especially those who make monthly payments (Social Security, federal civilian and military pensions) hold cash that doesn't show up in the trust funds. It's called "operating capital".
That's the math. Now if you have evidence that the Highway Trust Fund is not included in the Debt Held by Federal Government Accounts - which does reduce the "apparent" deficit, show it to me.
What Is the Highway Trust Fund?
The Highway Trust Fund (HTF) was created by the Highway Revenue Act of 1956 (Pub. L. 84-627), primarily to ensure a dependable source of financing for the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways and also as the source of funding for the remainder of the Federal-aid Highway Program. Prior to the creation of the HTF, federal financial assistance to support highway programs came from the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury. While federal motor fuel and motor vehicle taxes did exist before the creation of the HTF, the receipts were directed to the General Fund, and there was no relationship between the receipts from these taxes and federal funding for highways. The Highway Revenue Act authorized that revenues from certain highway-user taxes could be credited to the HTF to finance a greatly expanded highway program enacted in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.
In the original Highway Revenue Act of 1956, the crediting of user taxes to the HTF was set to expire at the end of fiscal year 1972, but since then, legislation has been passed to extend the imposition of the taxes and their transfer to the HTF through September 30, 2005.
Like other federal trust funds, the HTF is a financing mechanism established by law to account for tax receipts that are collected by the federal government and are dedicated or "earmarked" for expenditure on special purposes. Originally, the HTF focused solely on highways, but later Congress determined that a portion of the revenues from highway-user taxes dedicated to the HTF should be used to fund transit needs, resulting in a 5 cent increase in the gas tax (to 9 cents), of which 1 cent would go towards transit, to help fund the new account. As a result, the Mass Transit Account was created within the HTF effective April 1, 1983. Although never formally described and named, the portion of the Highway Trust Fund outside the Mass Transit Account has come to be called the Highway Account and receives all HTF receipts not specifically designated for the Mass Transit Account.
How is the HTF funded?
Tax revenues directed to the HTF are derived from excise taxes on highway motor fuel and truck-related taxes on truck tires, sales of trucks and trailers, and heavy vehicle use. The Mass Transit Account receives a portion of the motor fuel taxes, usually 2.86 cents per gallon, as does the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund, usually 0.1 cent per gallon. The General Fund receives 2.5 cents per gallon of the tax on gasohol and some other alcohol fuels plus an additional 0.6 cent per gallon for fuels that are at least 10 percent ethanol. The Highway Account receives the remaining portion of the fuel tax proceeds.
http://www.nemw.org/HWtrustfund.htm
I'd say that counts as a trite reply: it's a verbatim repitition of post #21, and shows no evidence of actual thought. (Unless cut-n-paste of text requires mental effort on the part of Mr. Southack.)
I agree. Nowhere in the "piece" does it say how the trust funds are held. I know, but Mr. Southack seems not to.
Maybe he will believe a DemocRAT:
WASHINGTON--Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) recently signed on as an original cosponsor of H.R. 4, The Truth in Budgeting Act, which is designed to remove all Federal transportation trust funds from the Federal budget process. As the only member of the Bay Area delegation sitting on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Tauscher will be an influential Freshman member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the decision-making process for the Bay Area’s overall transportation needs.
That's from:
http://www.house.gov/tauscher/press/1-16-97.htm
Then there is this:
The Highway Trust Fund is just another trust fund whose cubbard is bare. The revenues generated by the gas tax are deposited in the Highway Trust Fund. In 1969 President Johnson and Congress changed the trust fund from "off budget" to "on budget." This allowed the government to place the excess gas tax money (not used for highways) into the general fund in an effort to hide the true cost of the Vietnam War. Today, this excess money helps hide the budget deficit. In place of this excess money, the government put in Treasury Bills or bonds, which are merely IOUs, payable by future tax revenues. If the government ever really spent this surplus, it would appear on paper as an increase in the size of the budget deficit.
That's from:
http://www.character-education.us/trustfnd.htm
Perhaps Southack should learn to Google before exposing his ignorance.
Which is to say, all non-excess money used for highways does NOT help hide the budget deficit.
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