Highway Bill Exceeds Limit Set by President

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) Porker of the Month for playing a key role in adding $11 billion to a transportation bill already bursting with pork, pushing its cost to $295 billion over six years.  The Senate passed the amendment to the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005 by a vote of 76-22.  President Bush has threatened to veto any bill that costs more than the $284 billion House version passed in March.

Sen. Grassley’s extravagance is the latest in a line of congressional shenanigans stretching back to September 2003, when the previous six-year transportation bill expired.  President Bush originally threatened to veto any bill costing more than $256 billion (the amount collected by the gas tax).  The House responded by requesting an eye-popping $375 billion while the Senate requested $318 billion.  After much posturing and wrangling, the House compromised with the President on a price tag of $283 billion, an amount that was apparently agreeable to the Senate as well.
The bill contains many projects for Sen. Grassley’s home state of Iowa, including:  $4 million to construct the Principal Riverwalk in Des Moines; $2 million for transportation enhancements to access Lake Belva Deer, Sigourney; $1 million for construction of the 100th Street Interchange on 135-80 in Urbandale; and $1 million (over three years) for the purchase of 40-foot buses in Des Moines.  The thousands of earmarks in the bill show that Congress is more concerned about parochial interests than aggregate transportation needs or the realities of a $427 billion deficit and $7.8 trillion debt.

The federal role in transportation was conceived for projects that would benefit the entire country, such as the   Interstate Highway System, which was completed in 1975.  Instead of sunsetting as originally proposed, the gas tax has grown from 3 cents per gallon to 18.4 cents per gallon and has morphed from a dedicated fund for highways into a grab bag of goodies for members of Congress.  Drivers shelling out money at the pump are paying for museums, bike trails, and horse trails all over the country. 

Sen. Grassley and others on Capitol Hill make the dubious argument that the $11 billion will be offset, in part, by measures to crack down on fraud and abuse in tax collection.  However, it is irresponsible and speculative to assume that such measures will net $11 billion.  Furthermore, some of the measures redirect revenue from the general treasury to the highway trust fund.

For directly challenging the President’s call for fiscal restraint and ignoring Congress’s own budget resolution, for raiding the federal cookie jar, and for spinning fantasies about a revenue-neutral spending spree, CAGW names Sen. Charles Grassley its Porker of the Month for May 2005.  

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.