AED: Highway Funding Stop-Gap Not the Answer
Warned weeks ago that Highway Trust Fund payments were going to be cut, the Senate last week took until a few hours before the deadline to pass a temporary fix, keeping the fund going until next May. AED's Brian McGuire released this statement from the Associated Equipment Distributors:
"By waiting until the last minute to solve a problem we've known for years was coming, Congress brought the highway program and the construction industry to the brink of disaster. We hope this exercise has underscored to everyone on Capitol Hill that the Highway Trust Fund is in dire shape and needs additional revenues, be it from a gas tax increase or some other source. Providing the infrastructure that allows the economy to function is a core obligation of federal government. Now it's up to Congress to fulfill that obligation and put the HTF back on the road to long-term solvency," McGuire said.
It was pushed to the edge, explained Siobahn Hughes, writing in the Wall Street Journal, because senators had wanted to authorize funding only through Dec. 19. Their goal was to pressure Congress to pass a multiyear highway bill between the November elections and the swearing in of a new Congress, a time when political pressures may ease. Senators also had wanted to avoid using pension smoothing, one of the methods used to fund the stop-gap effort, which lawmakers from both parties deride as a budget gimmick.
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