Federal Funds
For all the sins of the Bush Administration, this is the transit-fan equivalent of killing puppies for sport:
The bulk of funding for the federal Highway Trust Fund comes from the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax. But revenues from the tax have flattened out, likely because people are driving less due to the price of gas and because cars have become more fuel efficient in the 14 years since the federal gas tax was last increased.
White House budget officials said the Highway Trust Fund will have a roughly $3 billion surplus in the current fiscal year. But by the end of fiscal 2009 it will be running a $3.9 billion deficit.
“There are challenges,” said Christin Baker, a spokeswoman for the federal Office of Management and Budget, which writes the president’s annual budget proposal. “We can’t spend what we don’t have.”
When Congress proposed raising the federal gasoline tax by 4 cents per gallon several years ago, President Bush threatened a veto and urged lawmakers to curb spending.
In its latest budget proposal, the administration suggested as a temporary solution that money from the federal mass transit trust fund account, which is running a surplus, be transferred to the highway account to cover the anticipated shortage.
- Frank's blog
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Before I didn't really care about the middle east war, budget deficit and what not, but after reading this I am now officially a Bush hater.
The Bush people are doing this all through the federal budget. A lot of what he said the in the State-of-the-Union address was just hot air, if you look at where they actually plan to spend the money.
To me the most shameful thing is 750,000 disabled people waiting for Social Security to rule on their disability applications.
I mean, really, when Halliburton or some other company with a track record of fraud asks for money, Bush can't give it to them fast enough. There's never enough time for competitive bids when Halliburton wants some dough.
But when a disabled person needs money, well, that's a different matter- time for a searching investigation and sober reflection.
The good news would be that Halliburton hasn't been hired to build our transit systems- yet.