When pondering the monstrosity that is the recently enacted
federal highway bill, most observers will note how expensive it is
but never really discern why it’s an indicator of a larger problem.
Yes, on paper it will cost $286.4 billion. That’s 31 percent larger
than the last highway bill in 1998, $30 billion more than the
maximum amount the president threatened would trigger a veto last
year, and $2 billion more than the White House was willing to
accept earlier this year.
Unfortunately, the bill will really cost $295 billion, but it
was made to look smaller by way of an accounting gimmick. The bill
assumes that Congress will simply vote not to spend $8.5 billion on
September 30, 2009, one day before the bill expires. It’s very
unlikely that will ever happen. As a result, the bill will be $11
billion more expensive than President Bush said he would accept
seven months ago. None of this, of course, stopped the president
from signing the bill and thereby demolishing any credibility he
might have to threaten vetoes of future spending bills — assuming
he’d even want to.
The bill is filled to the brim with pork projects — it’s
stuffed “like a turkey,” bragged Rep. Don Young of Alaska, House
transportation committee chairman and the main beneficiary of some
of the most expensive projects within, including a $231 million
bridge in Anchorage to be named “Don Young’s Way.” Indeed, while
projects earmarked for specific congressional districts are nothing
new, the amounts in this bill are staggering. There are over 6,000
specific earmarks at a total cost of $24 billion. Contrast that
with the 1,850 projects in the last highway bill. Or the 152
projects in the 1987 bill. President Ronald Reagan vetoed that
bill. Those were the good old days.
All of this, however, is merely a symptom of two much larger
problems. The first is structural. The Interstate Highway System
has been complete since 1986. The federal fuel tax was supposed to
sunset upon completion. Yet it’s still around and so is Congress’s
power to dole out the cash it collects with it. Today the so-called
highway trust fund looks more like a politician’s slush fund.
Most of the money is sent back to states through a formula that
guarantees that at least 90.5 percent of the revenue from each
state returns to that state. The current bill raises that level to
92 percent by 2009. What happens to the rest? At the expense of all
other states, a very few politically powerful congressmen get to
divvy it up. This benefits powerful incumbent politicians like
Democratic senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, whose state
receives close to $2 for each $1 his state contributes. Or
Democratic senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, or Republican
senator Ted Stevens of Alaska (member of the Senate Appropriations
Committee), or GOP congressman Don Young of Alaska, just to name a
few. Each state represented by them receives more than $2 for every
$1 contributed. In the case of Alaska, the ratio is an astounding 5
to 1.
But how about letting each state keep all of the fuel tax money
it collects? Supporters of limited government in the House, like
Jeff Flake of Arizona and Scott Garrett of New Jersey, have
promoted plans to get the federal government out of the highway
business altogether by giving complete responsibility over road
construction and maintenance to the states. This would allow states
to keep all the money they collect in fuel taxes and decide how
best to use that money.
Which leads us to the second real reason why the highway bill is
such a disaster: the complete abandon of fiscal discipline by the
Republican majority in Congress. The reform plans to devolve this
power back to the states was an idea promoted originally by Reagan,
and discussed during the early days of the Republican takeover of
Congress in the mid-1990s. Yet this month it was the senior GOP
members and the leadership who were fighting changes to the
political patronage system fueled by the highway slush fund. Just
as it has been senior Republicans during the past five years
fighting all other attempts to cut spending or put a cap on the
federal budget.
The Republicans are no longer the party of Reagan when it comes
to the fight for limited government. It’s Don Young’s world, now.
We’re just living in it.
