Posted on 12/30/2014 7:03:50 AM PST by cotton1706
It is rare for conservatives to score a federal policy victory these days, especially with a Democrat in the White House, but as Michael Barone reminds us, just by playing defense conservatives have done exactly that on transportation. Unfortunately there are some in Congress who want to reverse these gains.
The big win for conservatives on transportation comes from two sources. First, when the gas tax was last raised in 1993, it was not indexed for inflation, so the 18.4 cents a gallon collected today doesn't go as far today as it did more than two decades ago. Second, thanks to technology, Americans are consuming less gasoline, so there are fewer gallons of gas to tax.
Thanks to these two trends, the Highway Trust Fund first went bankrupt in 2008 and Congress has been creatively bailing out the spending program on a short-term basis ever since. Without new funding, federal transportation spending has essentially flatlined since Obama's stimulus ran out.
snip
Less power concentrated in Washington. More decisions made at the local level. What is a conservative not to love?
Unfortunately there are some establishment Republicans who want to give this victory away. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) sponsored a bill last year that would have raised the gas tax by 12 cents over two years and indexed it to inflation. Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) has advocated a similar plan in the House.
Thankfully, however, there are some Republicans in the Senate who want to build on what conservatives have accomplished so far. Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have introduced the Transportation Empowerment Act which would cut the federal gas tax to 3.7 cents by 2020. States would then be able to set their own gas taxes and fund their own infrastructure projects.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Whenever a government ‘indexes for inflation’ they are guaranteeing the continued existence and increase of inflation by law.......................
IMHE once enough Tony Soprano-types in the construction industry manage to put enough pressure on enough RINOs to join hands with the Democrats on this, it has always been GAME OVER.
Ya spend spend spend that what neo statitst do. The republican party is an enemy of liberty and sanity.
F the GOP
They will betray you mark my words
Not going to happen. Bridges and roads are pork that Senators and Congressmen push through to wave in front of the voters come election time. If responsibility for funding and maintaining the infrastructure is passed on to the states then they can’t take credit for it.
It’s not infrastructure spending I mind so much, it’s infrastructure waste. All of those jobs are at union-boosted wages. They’re called the “prevailing wage” (is it Davis-Bacon that mandates this?), but we all know there’s a huge labor waste boost for union cronies.
“Winning” or “Whining”
I think there may have been an error in that headline...
Maybe the gub’mint should take care of our currency so that it doesn’t inflate?
.... With decades of constant dumbing down of America and the growing faction of the Low Information Voter ..... it will become exponentially more difficult to explain even the most elementary concepts of economic principles to the public. Conservatives need to begin to start re-educating the public in simple terms that the "Low Education Voter" (LEV) can understand ... otherwise ... when the country goes to the polls again ... by then the ranks of the LEV's will have once again inflated ... giving the advantage to the party of Liberal panderer's
.... As the old debate adage goes: ... "If you have to explain your point, after making the point, what's the point? See my point?"
..... It's time to stop preaching to the choir and start re-educating America ... or the Liberals will take all.
Let us hope that Marco Rubio and Mike Lee prevail.
PING!
They need to end Davis-Bacon. Let competition fix the infrastructure.
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