Well, it appears that our efforts are paying off.  Responding to our charge that the GOP was violating the pledge against bundled megabills, Boehner announced that he will split the proposal into three separate bills; the highway bill (HR 7), pension reform (HR 3813), and expanded oil and gas drilling (HR 3408).  This from Roll Call:

In a joint statement with Rules Chairman David Dreier (Calif.), the Ohio Republican sought to cast the decision as part of his pledge for a more open environment in the House.

“Republicans pledged to pass bills in a more transparent manner and reverse the era of quickly moving massive bills across the floor without proper examination. Accordingly, the energy/infrastructure jobs plan will be considered on the floor in the same manner in which it was written and voted upon in committee — in separate pieces,” Boehner and Dreier said.

Such a process will allow “each major component of the plan to be debated and amended more openly, rather than as a single ‘comprehensive’ bill with limited debate and limited opportunity for amendment,” they added.

This is great news.  But here’s the catch (via CQ subscription):

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Well, it appears that our efforts are paying off.  Responding to our charge that the GOP was violating the pledge against bundled megabills, Boehner announced that he will split the proposal into three separate bills; the highway bill (HR 7), pension reform (HR 3813), and expanded oil and gas drilling (HR 3408).  This from Roll Call:

In a joint statement with Rules Chairman David Dreier (Calif.), the Ohio Republican sought to cast the decision as part of his pledge for a more open environment in the House.

“Republicans pledged to pass bills in a more transparent manner and reverse the era of quickly moving massive bills across the floor without proper examination. Accordingly, the energy/infrastructure jobs plan will be considered on the floor in the same manner in which it was written and voted upon in committee — in separate pieces,” Boehner and Dreier said.

Such a process will allow “each major component of the plan to be debated and amended more openly, rather than as a single ‘comprehensive’ bill with limited debate and limited opportunity for amendment,” they added.

This is great news.  But here’s the catch (via CQ subscription):

Read More →

Poor John Feehery had the impossible task of arguing both against host Chris Matthews and MSNBC regular, sir frog voice himself Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post who both took turns shilling for, defending, and promoting Mr. Obama’s new budget for 2013. Now, I have yet to read the budget and all the details but from what I’m hearing it’s a two fold pile of donkey crap mixed with ice cream and tax hikes. Never mind the rehashed vomit, like this obsession the left has with building roads and bridges, there’s also plans to train  2 million Americans at community colleges….because we don’t have job training programs and technical schools in this country as it is. Boy what would we do if the left didn’t exaggerate all things that exist in the world? They seem to play on the premise that more of the same is best, even when more of the same has undeniably weakened this nation’s fiscal and economic standing long term.

When Mr. Feehery tried to argue the dangers of long term deficits caused by short term politically influenced spending, he was shot down by Eugene Robinson because according to Mr. Robinson better we leave our children with a belt busting deficit and debt than a bad economy. Well what if we’re setting our children and grandchildren up to inherit both? Hmm, you know I bet liberals didn’t stop to think about the 1,0000th way you could die before exhausting the possibilities of the first 999.

Spending our way into a more sustainable economy doesn’t work and the facts bare that out. Our deficit remains a key component as to why no matter how short term a so called “recovery” lasts, the fact that the United States is set to hit at or near the 26 trillion dollar mark in terms of our net debt and deficit is something that seems to fall on the ears of the profoundly dumb, aloof, and blind. But hey, perception is key and the unemployment rate is falling, never mind the reason why the unemployment rate continues to go down, Media Matters and the mainstream media have the details covered so many Americans won’t have to inform themselves about the truth.

Ignorance and intellectual laziness will ultimately in my view spell the end of what was, and what no longer is a credible nation. I’m just being honest when I say America is a at best now a top tier second rate nation on borrowed time. We’re like a former pound for pound fighter who at such a relative young age is now shot and without real presence because he’s been in too many wars in the ring. We’re like said fighter who continues to chase the fast buck fighting the young studs whom he knows he can no longer compete with on an equal level. He keeps fighting and fighting because he needs to make out with the grip because he knows it’s not too far along when that one young stunner clears the deck with that one perfect knockout punch and boom, end of story.

We can’t compete with China, Brazil, and India right now so we teeter around them sight unseen as to not get noticed and vaporized in this global contest for world supremacy. The Chinese laugh at us because they know the more we spend the closer they’ll get to owning us. But unfortunately our president doesn’t care because his long game is reelection and his strategy is class warfare. So he’s going to spend trillions and he wants the rich to pay for it. Now, math was my worst subject but let me try to calculate the cost: 1% of 99% are to pay for a 3.8 trillion dollar budget. So it’s like you mom and dad who make 100,000 dollars a year each, paying the college tuition costs for you, your sister, your brother, your friends, and their brothers and sisters combined for the next four years, give a year or two depending. By the time your folks calculate the expenses they’ll have not even begun to even dent the surface because they have expenses of their own.

And my friends that’s the misfortune of having personal responsibilities. If you 250,000 dollars a year chances are you aren’t just partying and buying private jets and yachts all day long. You have bills, you have to maintain your property, you see being well off means more than just the power of purchase. This may surprise liberals, even rich liberals but rich people work harder than poor people you know why? Rich people work harder than poor people because rich people are rich. Think about how Bill Gates and Steve Jobs became millionaires and eventually billionaires. I’m sure the man or woman behind the most iconic companies and or products our there had many set backs and doubts before ultimately making good or their risk taking.

I’m not bashing poor people just stating a fact. It’s much harder making a lot of money than it is making enough money to get by. Any Joe out there can find a job flipping hamburgers for tips, but how many Joe’s are willing to work hard enough to move up and one day own the company or start their own burger joint?

I almost want Democrats to raise taxes though because I want to them to run out of rich people to tax. I want to see their faces when they realize the number of wealthy Americans has declined under their policies. Why, who will donate to their campaigns if that happens?

Throughout the week, Republicans have expressed their shock and dismay that we would have the unbridled temerity to oppose a highway bill.  They want to know why we are suddenly opposed to such basic things as transportation bills, even ones that will leave us with a $70 billion budget shortfall.  They are impugning our motives, charging us with opposing everything that emanates from leadership.

Well, once upon a time, it wasn’t just conservative outsiders who supported the notion that we peg transportation spending to the level of gas tax revenue.  In fact, just last July, members of the T and I Committee, led by Chairman John Mica, introduced a bill that would do just that.  They drafted a plan for a 6-year reauthorization bill that would cost $230 billion, roughly commensurate to the gas tax revenue over that same period.  At the time, we heaped accolades upon that bill.  On July 18, I wrote the following in these pages:

“As a new spirit of fiscal discipline slowly seeps into Washington, John Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has drafted the framework for a new highway bill that will cap the funding for highway and transportation projects to the amount of revenue supplied by the gas tax and other highway user fees.”

In fact, it wasn’t just conservative outsiders who stressed the importance of maintaining the integrity of the highway trust fund as a pay-as-you-go system.  The draft proposal from the T and I Committee made that the selling point of their legislation.  It appears that the document has been removed from the committee’s website (the link in the aforementioned quote is defunct), but I still have the pdf from the time I wrote the article.  It reads like this:

Read More →

Throughout the week, Republicans have expressed their shock and dismay that we would have the unbridled temerity to oppose a highway bill.  They want to know why we are suddenly opposed to such basic things as transportation bills, even ones that will leave us with a $70 billion budget shortfall.  They are impugning our motives, charging us with opposing everything that emanates from leadership.

Well, once upon a time, it wasn’t just conservative outsiders who supported the notion that we peg transportation spending to the level of gas tax revenue.  In fact, just last July, members of the T and I Committee, led by Chairman John Mica, introduced a bill that would do just that.  They drafted a plan for a 6-year reauthorization bill that would cost $230 billion, roughly commensurate to the gas tax revenue over that same period.  At the time, we heaped accolades upon that bill.  On July 18, I wrote the following in these pages:

“As a new spirit of fiscal discipline slowly seeps into Washington, John Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has drafted the framework for a new highway bill that will cap the funding for highway and transportation projects to the amount of revenue supplied by the gas tax and other highway user fees.”

In fact, it wasn’t just conservative outsiders who stressed the importance of maintaining the integrity of the highway trust fund as a pay-as-you-go system.  The draft proposal from the T and I Committee made that the selling point of their legislation.  It appears that the document has been removed from the committee’s website (the link in the aforementioned quote is defunct), but I still have the pdf from the time I wrote the article.  It reads like this:

Read More →

We’ve directed a lot of attention to the deficiencies of the House version of the highway bill (here and here).  We must also work to defeat the Senate version, which is even worse.  The 2-year $109 billion Senate bill (S.1813) offers no reform to mass transit and continues to mandate that states use 10% of their funding for wasteful “enhancement projects.”  As bad as the House bill is for conservatives, the Senate bill is absolutely indefensible.  Yet, amazingly, it was reported out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee with unanimous support from Republican members last year.  Last night, it was approved by the Finance Committee.

The Senate bill will spawn even larger deficits in the long-run.  Even for the two-year authorization period of the bill, there will be a $35 billion deficit between trust fund outlays and gas tax revenue.  Both the House and Senate versions rely on drawing down all existing funds in the trust fund to cover some of the gap ( to the extent that those funds really exist outside of an accounting gimmick).  However, there will still be a $13 billion shortfall over the next two years (and much more in the long-term).  The House bill relies on new royalties from oil exploration (that will never be approved by Democrats), but the Senate bill relies on phantom savings (from revenues that are already used to offset other expenditures) plus…you guessed it; tax increases.

After the EPW committee approved the underlying provisions of the bill, the Senate Finance Committee voted last night to approve $7 billion in sundry tax increases to fund this terrible bill.  One of those provisions includes a tax hike on inherited “stretched” IRAs and 401(k)s.

Here are the details from the horse’s mouth (Baucus Chairman’s Mark).

Read More →

We’ve directed a lot of attention to the deficiencies of the House version of the highway bill (here and here).  We must also work to defeat the Senate version, which is even worse.  The 2-year $109 billion Senate bill (S.1813) offers no reform to mass transit and continues to mandate that states use 10% of their funding for wasteful “enhancement projects.”  As bad as the House bill is for conservatives, the Senate bill is absolutely indefensible.  Yet, amazingly, it was reported out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee with unanimous support from Republican members last year.  Last night, it was approved by the Finance Committee.

The Senate bill will spawn even larger deficits in the long-run.  Even for the two-year authorization period of the bill, there will be a $35 billion deficit between trust fund outlays and gas tax revenue.  Both the House and Senate versions rely on drawing down all existing funds in the trust fund to cover some of the gap ( to the extent that those funds really exist outside of an accounting gimmick).  However, there will still be a $13 billion shortfall over the next two years (and much more in the long-term).  The House bill relies on new royalties from oil exploration (that will never be approved by Democrats), but the Senate bill relies on phantom savings (from revenues that are already used to offset other expenditures) plus…you guessed it; tax increases.

After the EPW committee approved the underlying provisions of the bill, the Senate Finance Committee voted last night to approve $7 billion in sundry tax increases to fund this terrible bill.  One of those provisions includes a tax hike on inherited “stretched” IRAs and 401(k)s.

Here are the details from the horse’s mouth (Baucus Chairman’s Mark).

Read More →

Last week, several House committees favorably reported the $260 billion 5-year House GOP highway bill to the full body.  This 846-page behemoth is now headed to a floor vote sometime next week.  Simply put, conservatives oppose the House leadership’s highway bill (H.R. 7) because it continues the failed top-down federal approach to transportation spending, while precluding devolution to the states for at least another five years.  Moreover, it eschews the pay-as-you-go funding mechanism of the Highway Trust Fund (eerily similar to the Social Security Trust Fund!) by permanently authorizing a higher level of spending than the fund’s corresponding revenue source; the federal gas tax.

Nevertheless, let’s disregard the policy concerns for a moment and focus on the political argument.  Just as they did with the budget battles of 2011, GOP leadership is selling this bill as the best alternative, a virtuous improvement of past policies.  And undoubtedly, on paper, the version that will be presented to conservative House members (as opposed to the final version after they cave) contains many good provisions:

• It eliminates the mandate requiring states spend 10% of their transportation funds on transportation enhancements and bike lanes.
• No earmarks. Dozens of old and/or redundant programs are eliminated.
• While it continues to fund Mass Transit to the tune of $8.4 billion annually, this legislation bars gas tax revenue from being diverted in order to support public transportation. [Although, in fine print, the legislation will still fund public transportation projects with a one-time $40 billion appropriation transfer from an unknown source (general fund?) into a renamed account called the “Alternative Transportation Account.”]
• The deficit between the trust fund outlays and the gas tax revenue (anywhere from $30-60 billion over 5 years) will be offset, in part, with royalties from opening lands in Alaska, parts of the continental US, and offshore to oil and gas exploration.
• Yet again, there is a provision slipped into the bill that grants a permit to TransCanada Corp. for construction of the Keystone pipeline.

Read More →

Last week, several House committees favorably reported the $260 billion 5-year House GOP highway bill to the full body.  This 846-page behemoth is now headed to a floor vote sometime next week.  Simply put, conservatives oppose the House leadership’s highway bill (H.R. 7) because it continues the failed top-down federal approach to transportation spending, while precluding devolution to the states for at least another five years.  Moreover, it eschews the pay-as-you-go funding mechanism of the Highway Trust Fund (eerily similar to the Social Security Trust Fund!) by permanently authorizing a higher level of spending than the fund’s corresponding revenue source; the federal gas tax.

Nevertheless, let’s disregard the policy concerns for a moment and focus on the political argument.  Just as they did with the budget battles of 2011, GOP leadership is selling this bill as the best alternative, a virtuous improvement of past policies.  And undoubtedly, on paper, the version that will be presented to conservative House members (as opposed to the final version after they cave) contains many good provisions:

• It eliminates the mandate requiring states spend 10% of their transportation funds on transportation enhancements and bike lanes.
• No earmarks. Dozens of old and/or redundant programs are eliminated.
• While it continues to fund Mass Transit to the tune of $8.4 billion annually, this legislation bars gas tax revenue from being diverted in order to support public transportation. [Although, in fine print, the legislation will still fund public transportation projects with a one-time $40 billion appropriation transfer from an unknown source (general fund?) into a renamed account called the “Alternative Transportation Account.”]
• The deficit between the trust fund outlays and the gas tax revenue (anywhere from $30-60 billion over 5 years) will be offset, in part, with royalties from opening lands in Alaska, parts of the continental US, and offshore to oil and gas exploration.
• Yet again, there is a provision slipped into the bill that grants a permit to TransCanada Corp. for construction of the Keystone pipeline.

Read More →

Here we go again.  Republicans talk incessantly about the need to cut the deficit, yet they are once again proposing a policy that will actually augment the deficit.

On March 31, authorization for transportation spending, along with its accompanying revenue source – the federal gasoline tax – is set to expire.  Republicans in the House and a bipartisan group in the Senate have introduced dueling proposals to fund long-term transportation projects, in lieu of the short-term bills that have been enacted since 2007.  Unfortunately, the Republican House bill is not much better than the Senate bill.

One need not be a staunch conservative to appreciate how inane it is to collect gasoline taxes from all 50 states into one pool, only to be doled out randomly for every state’s personal transportation project.  Ever since the Interstate Highway System was completed almost 20 years ago, there has been no rational purpose for the current top-down federal control over transportation.  Successive congresses have diverted as much as 38% of the gas tax revenue to mass transit projects and wasteful endeavors for specific states.  The net result is that some states are donors (contribute more), while other states are recipients (receive more in funding than they contribute).

We need to abolish the federal gas tax, and devolve all responsibility and taxes for transportation projects to the states.  The two bills percolating through Congress will double down on failed policies, add to the debt, perpetuate inefficiencies in highway construction, continue to encumber traffic, and preclude any devolution of responsibility to the states.

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