Category: Congress

Categories
Congress DOT Finance Infrastructure President

At long last, a transportation budget that pays for itself—and recognizes the climate

6816943450_9496fd16a6_k

» One last proposal from President Obama stakes a big claim in favor of improved public transportation instead of highway infrastructure, but given the Congressional environment, hopes for passage are slim.

If Congress’ hostility to President Barack Obama hadn’t already been apparent, the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia certainly pulled back the curtains. Suffice it to say that the administration has very little hope of making significant policy change over the next year.

The administration has taken this opportunity to emphasize the importance transportation plays in contributing to climate change.

Nonetheless, the Administration revealed its big budget proposal last week, and with it a major plan for increased investment in surface transportation. Unlike the FAST five-year bill passed in December by Congress, Obama’s budget would substantially increase funding for transportation infrastructure over the current levels.

As the following chart shows, while budget outlays for highways, transit (Federal Transit Administration), and railroads (Federal Railroad Administration) have remained roughly flat since 2010, Obama proposed major increases for FY 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016* that matched funding or were even higher than the amount dedicated to these types of infrastructure in 2009, during the economic stimulus.

Obama’s budget this year does the same, increasing funding quite substantially for transportation. But what makes the 2017 recommendation so different from those of previous years is that it proposes no net boost in highway infrastructure even as it proposes dramatically expanding funding for alternatives. The Federal Transit Administration would receive about $20 billion next year, compared to $11.8 billion in 2016, with larger formula and capital grants being joined by a “Rapid-Growth Area Transit Program” designed specifically for bus rapid transit in sprawling cities. The Federal Railroad Administration would receive about $6.3 billion, compared to $1.7 billion this year, renewing President Obama’s call for a better intercity rail network.

Budgets-Over-Time

This is a remarkable focus on transit that diverges from previous Obama budgets, which emphasized transportation investment as an example of a way for everyone to win. In this budget, highways definitively would not—at least to the degree they normally do.

What’s exciting is that the administration has taken this opportunity to recognize the importance transportation plays in contributing to climate change. Rather than simply reinforcing norms about what types of transportation get funding, the budget accepts that increasing spending on highways doesn’t do the environment much good. “To address the challenges of the 21st Century,” the budget notes, “the Nation needs a transportation system that reduces reliance on oil, cuts carbon pollution, and strengthens our resilience to the impacts of climate change.”

It does so by reducing the ratio of highway to transit investments from about four to one to two to one.

Major investments identified in the budget include not only the large increases in formula and capital construction funding for the agencies noted above, but also billions in additional funding for climate-sensitive solutions to be implemented by metropolitan areas and states. $6 billion would be distributed to regions focused on transportation and land use efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; $1.5 billion would go to competitive grants for transit-oriented development; $1.7 billion would go to states whose transportation plans specifically mitigate air pollution; and $750 million would go to bolster climate resilience.

This is an amazing commitment to a cleaner transportation system, the likes of which no sitting president has ever proposed. It is also so different from actual Congressional appropriations to transportation, which continue to be heavily focused on increasing highway construction.

Also unlike the bill passed by the U.S. Congress, the Obama budget would actually pay for itself using transportation user fees—a first for this administration. A $10.25-per-barrel oil tax phased in over five years would, in effect, add $0.238 per gallon in new federal taxes on top of the $0.184 Americans already pay per gallon. It’s an appropriate measure that specifically taxes the major cause of transportation-related carbon emissions.

If this proposal had come earlier in the administration and the president had lobbied hard for it, there would be more to say about its prospects. But with a Congress that hasn’t increased the gas tax since 1993, despite the dramatic shortfalls in revenue that have occurred in the years since, it and the expenditures associated with it won’t happen, at least this year.

New transit projects receive a boost

As a complement to the 2017 budget, the Federal Transit Administration released its proposed funding recommendations for major new public transportation projects. The capital investments include not only the major projects that already have what are referred to as “full funding grant agreements”—including rail systems such as the first phase of Los Angeles’ Westside subway extension and Honolulu’s elevated line—but also future projects that the executive branch has endorsed for federal support.

Projects selected for funding include the second phase of L.A.’s subway; San Diego’s Mid-Coast Corridor; a streetcar line in Santa Ana; Maryland’s Purple Line light rail; Minneapolis’ Green Line light rail extension; TEX Rail between Fort Worth and DFW airport; and a northern extension of Seattle’s light rail. The project list also includes 14 other projects that are either renovations of existing lines or smaller projects, primarily BRT. They can all be mapped using Transit Explorer.

In spite of joyous news articles and press releases from cities around the country hailing a federal commitment to funding their relevant projects, the list of investments proposed by the FTA is far longer than will likely be funded. Whereas the 2016 budget for major transit capital expenditures was $2.2 billion, this list includes federal commitments for the $3.5 billion corresponding to the increase in funding the president is proposing for transportation overall—in other words, far more than Congress is likely to approve.

Take this list of federal commitments with a grain of salt: Many of these projects are not going to be approved for support this year.

What does this budget suggest about the future?

The administration’s on-and-off plans for big transportation investments have become something of a joke in policy circles; while exciting for those with active imaginations, this year’s budget, like those of previous years, isn’t much to write home about because it won’t happen. Nonetheless, the Obama Administration is offering one way to actually fund an increased investment in the American transportation system, and it wouldn’t be hard for his successor to adopt these ideas and offer them up as his or her own. Assuming a more willing Congress, these proposals could provide a framework for a new way of thinking about federal transportation spending that is more respectful of the climate and less focused on highway building.

A willing successor, though, would probably have to be one of the two Democrats in the presidential race, both of whom have supported new transportation investments and claim to care deeply about the climate. GOP candidate and Florida Senator Marco Rubio has proposed cutting the federal gas tax by 80 percent and eliminating transit funding; Ohio Governor John Kasich has a similar plan; Texas Senator Ted Cruz wants to eliminate federal New Starts funding; as governor, Jeb Bush destroyed a Florida high-speed rail plan. Donald Trump has made infrastructure investment, including in transit, one of his campaign’s slogans, but he, like all of the rest, seems to believe climate issues are irrelevant.

No matter what, the next president won’t have it easy: Cities and states are desperate for new transportation funding and will continue to ask the Congress to devote more to highways and transit. And mounting evidence of coming economic malaise suggests that new government stimulus of some sort may, in the end, be an important component of a future recovery plan. Perhaps Obama’s last budget will set the tone for something even better.

* To be clear, the administration’s first budget was for FY 2010, since President Obama entered office in January 2009. The stimulus was attributed to FY 2009.

Photo at top: University Link light rail under construction in Seattle, from Flickr user SoundTransit (cc).

Categories
Congress Finance Sustainability

A new federal transportation bill rejects the long-standing consensus on revenue but preserves the policy status quo

» The FAST Act is passed by the House and Senate, profoundly dismissing the claim that transportation is to be funded with user fees. Yet it reinforces decades-old policy about how money is to be spent and does nothing for the climate.

It’s a big achievement. At least, that’s what members of the U.S. House and Senate are telling themselves this week, now that they’ve passed a major long-term transportation reauthorization bill with overwhelming majorities from both sides of the aisle. President Obama will sign the bill in the coming days.

This legislation reinforces the trend that has been developing over the past seven years: Transportation funding at the federal level no longer has to be derived from user fees.

The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (“FAST”) will not fix America’s surface transportation, but it will provide $305 billion in spending over the next five years for our highway, transit, and railroad networks, most of which will be distributed to state departments of transportation and local transit agencies.

From a policy standpoint, FAST is little different from 2012’s MAP-21, the federal transportation legislation that came before it, preserving the general principle, for example, of funding highways and transit at roughly a four-to-one ratio. Nationally, transit will get about $50 billion over five years. This is the status quo that U.S. transport funding has stuck to since the early 1980s.

The details of the legislation are worth examining, but the general policies that undergird the federal involvement in transportation remain stuck in place. States have wide authority to choose how they spend their money on highways, and most of that is distributed by population-weighted formula. Transit agencies are provided money to spend on capital investments—generally distributed based on ridership—and they’re mostly prevented from spending on operations. Tolling existing highways is virtually banned. Overall funding is adjusted up, but not by much.

The user fee no longer matters

But what is definitively different about this legislation is that it reinforces the trend that has been developing over the past seven years: Transportation funding at the federal level no longer has to be derived from user fees.

FAST derives 23 percent of its revenues from sources other than the federal gas tax, the “user fee” that has been the foundation of the U.S. transportation program since President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highways Act in 1956. FAST, rather, takes in $70 billion from non-user fee revenues, notably including a transfer of $53.3 billion from the Federal Reserve’s surplus.

Since 2008, the Congress has transferred tens of billions of dollars from the general fund to the Highway Trust Fund, which supports the transportation program, and stuck to inflation-adjusted spending increases even though gas tax revenues have remained at roughly $40 billion a year since 2005.* State and local governments already derive a large share of their transportation dollars from non-user fees, contributing to a roads system that is largely supported by generalized sources, such as property and sales taxes.

Though this legislation may be understood as continuing the process of converting the federal transportation program away from user fees and toward general funds, it is the first long-term bill that explicitly commits to this policy. MAP-21 was designed to only last two years for a reason: There was something of a consensus in Congress that some other reliable source of funding, preferably a user fee such as a gas tax increase or a vehicle-miles traveled fee, would come up. Certainly, national transportation organizations have made advocating for an increase in user fees a basic goal.

FAST suggests that the amount of money collected via existing user fees is no longer relevant to the amount of money that should be spent. Despite the general hysteria in transportation circles in recent years over the fact that the U.S. gas tax has not been increased since 1993, Congress has not stopped filling the coffers; it has chosen instead to simply fill the gap through other means (the same cannot be said of every state, of course). This is not the outcome many would have predicted back in 2008.

The passage of FAST means that U.S. transportation policy is unlikely to change before its replacement is written in 2020 or 2021, and the revenue sources it commits to mean that there is no need for the Congress to expend the political capital to raise the gas tax until that time.

Indeed, whether the gas tax will ever be raised again should be questioned (I can hardly believe I’m raising this specter, given the transportation field’s insistence that user fees are the basis of all that is good). Certainly, even in five years increasing the gas tax, for example, would raise significant revenues. By the early 2020s, the number of electric vehicles will likely be increasing steadily, but at best they’ll still account for less than 10 percent of total vehicles sold in the U.S.; they accounted for less than 1 percent in 2014. While average fuel economy of new cars will increase from about 33 miles per gallon to 42, plenty of gas will still be purchased. And while per-capita driving may be rising less quickly than it once was, overall, driving will continue to increase.

These facts suggest that funding new transportation investments through user fees could be an appropriate mechanism five years from now, but Congress’ willingness to use general funds to fund FAST, practically with no dissent, suggest that support for sticking to user fees alone is minimal, at least among our federal representatives. What would make the situation in the early 2020s any different?

Several years ago I expressed hope that a shift toward using general funds rather than user fees was not only acceptable, but that it could also result in more funding for other modes like transit since there would no longer be a need to connect the revenue source—drivers paying at the pump—with the expenditures—primarily roadways. In theory, if we’re using general funds to pay for transportation improvements, roads don’t have to be the top focus for mobility investments.

Yet FAST indicates that eliminating, or at least reducing, the direct connection between funding source and expenditures has not particularly changed the environment about what modes are prioritized. At least given the makeup of today’s Congress, support for dramatically increasing support for transit, biking, and walking remains far off.

No interest in the planet’s future

In light of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP-21) currently underway in Paris, the FAST legislation’s adherence to the federal policy of spending the large majority of transportation funding on highways is a disappointment, to say the least. Coming from a Congress whose members have openly expressed their contempt for any American responsibility for reducing carbon emissions, it is hardly a surprising move.

Nonetheless, in intentionally choosing to support transportation modes that are worse for the climate, the Congress has chosen to use its legislative powers to reinforce our country’s negative contribution to a darkening planetary nightmare. By holding a sheet over our collective heads, our Congress is perhaps hoping no one will notice the inconvenient truth that funding for more highways represents.

And they may be right: Few in the media have noted that the choice to invest so much in carbon-spewing vehicles comes at the same time as our world is supposedly working to stop the spewing.

Even so, this is a miscarriage of public spending, and at a grand scale. Transportation accounts for more than a fifth of world carbon emissions, and its share is likely to rise in the immediate term since electrification of the automobile fleet remains at least a decade off and the number of cars in circulation is rising rapidly globally. In the U.S., the big concern may be freight; indeed, trucks alone account for 12.5 percent of total U.S. carbon emissions, and with trade continuing to power the global economy, that share can only rise.

Though mechanisms to reduce freight emissions exist—shifting shipping to rail, for example, would significantly limit the rise in pollution—FAST will dig the hole deeper. The legislation includes a massive new freight program that is almost exclusively dedicated to the movement of traditional, highway-based, diesel-polluting trucks.

Democrats, whose track records indicate at least some interest in the fight against carbon emissions, didn’t protest and voted en masse for the bill. Our political representatives just don’t care about climate change.

* FAST commits Washington to expend an average of $61 billion a year.

Photo above: Into the ditch for our transportation policy. From Flickr user Closed 24/7 (cc).

Categories
Congress DOT

An Interview with Secretary Foxx

» Foxx reiterates the Obama Administration’s demand for more transportation funding, but fails to commit to a new funding source outside of business tax reform. He also is non-committal on reforms to the Federal Railroad Administration’s rules for commuter rail systems.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to chat with Anthony Foxx, who became the U.S. Secretary of Transportation last year and was previously mayor of Charlotte. I wrote an article on the interview’s major focus points on the website of my employer, Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council. The transcript of the full interview is posted at the bottom of this post.

In addition to the conclusions I noted on MPC’s site (and please read those; they are relevant to the discussion here), I want to note a few points about the interview that reflect my personal sense of the administration’s progress on moving forward with a new transportation bill.

It was evident in Secretary Foxx’s responses that he remains committed to the Obama Administration’s push to increase funding for transportation. Of course, the Obama Administration has been promoting increased funding for transportation since 2009, beginning with the stimulus (which roughly doubled federal expenditures for transportation for a short period), and continuing with a number of proposals over the years, each of which promoted the idea of a huge infusion of funds for transportation but which ultimately produced little change. From that perspective, Secretary Foxx’s determination to pass a new four-year, $302 billion program for infrastructure (a plan that would increase expenditures by roughly 50%) seems rather unlikely to result in much of anything.

This is particularly true in light of Senator Barbara Boxer’s proposal to simply extend the funding levels provided for in MAP-21, which themselves were little changed from the previous level of spending. At the heart of the problem, as we all know, is that the transportation user fee model (premised on fuel tax revenues) has collapsed and no one is willing to do much of anything about it. It’s not Secretary Foxx’s fault, but the Obama Administration’s decision to propose funding transportation by using “business tax reform,” which is essentially premised on one-time repatriation of foreign assets, is a half-empty call for change, neither likely to pass Congress nor a long-term solution. I’m skeptical. It’s not that the Administration has done anything terribly wrong, but there certainly has not been much courage coming out of the White House on this issue.

No one with particularly significant power is willing to simply say, “I will increase the gas tax,” or “I will institute a vehicle-miles traveled fee.” It’s not an easy demand, certainly, but it is a necessary one if we want to move forward with more funding for our road and transit systems.

In this context, it is frustrating to watch Secretary Foxx, like Secretary Ray LaHood before him, extol the values of high-speed rail (I confess I hold them dear as well), without making any progress in actually paying for it. Foxx pointed to Florida and Texas as models of interest in high-speed rail even in relatively conservative states — a fair point — but he failed to note that those states are hoping that the private sector will chip in for most or all of the cost of those lines. Certainly conservatives will support transportation investments that are fully paid for by someone else, but what happens when the Florida or Texas projects require public subsidy? Will they face the same resistance as has California’s heavily contested project has?

On the other hand, what other options does the Administration have in the face of a recalcitrant House of Representatives?

Nevertheless, Secretary Foxx’s answers about the Department of Transportation’s willingness to expand the possibility of local funding options were positive. States and cities should be able to toll their local highways if they so desire, but right now they’re stymied by federal regulations that make tolling impossible on most Interstate highways. His willingness to consider Transportation for America’s new policy proposal that would encourage local and state competition in awarding transportation funding is potentially exciting.

In addition, where the executive branch of the federal government may have an easier time producing positive results is in the implementation of regulatory changes within agencies of the Department of Transportation. One issue that has been of particular concern to those interested in improving American rail service has been the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) rules about train weight and strength, which effectively make lighter, more efficient European and Asian trains impossible in the U.S. Stephen Smith noted last year in Next City that the FRA was considering changes to these rules by 2015, when positive train control (PTC) is supposed to be implemented.

Secretary Foxx, however, was far less direct on the issue than this change would imply, noting that “Whether that issue or how that issue comes up in the context of that is still an open question, but we’ll take a look at any issues put out there.” It’s hard to know based on that whether the Department of Transportation or the Obama Administration in general will take these issues seriously in the coming months, but the issue is important, and we can only hope they’ll notice.

—————–

Full interview transcript follows below

Continue reading “An Interview with Secretary Foxx”
Categories
Commuter Rail Congress DOT Finance High-Speed Rail Intercity Rail President

The Administration Refreshes Its Push for a Major Infusion of Funds into the National Rail Program

» The Obama Administration hopes to invest almost $40 billion in new and improved passenger rail infrastructure over the next five years. Good luck getting that through Congress.

It’s an annual spectacle. The President releases his budget. The budget proposes a huge expansion in spending on surface transportation, particularly in high-speed rail. Administration figures testify on Capitol Hill, hoping to raise the specter of infrastructure failure if nothing is done. The Congress responds lackadaisically, with Democrats arguing that something should be done and Republicans doing everything they can to prevent a cent more from being spent, and ultimately no one agrees to much of anything other than a repetition of the past year’s mediocre investments.

Will things be different this year?

The question is particularly relevant because the U.S. Government’s rail investment program — its authorization for allocating funds to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will expire this year. Legislation supporting the FRA, as well as Amtrak, the national passenger rail corporation, and improvements to freight rail, is necessary to ensure continuity of funding. Previous bills have authorized funding over five-year increments. In effect, the bills set out how much Congress expects to expend over the next few years, and allows the House and Senate to avoid debating the issue for years at a time.

The Obama Administration has responded to situation by proposing a massive infusion of funds for passenger rail and the creation of a “National High-Performance Rail System.”

Total funding for rail activity, both for operating funds and capital projects, would increase from about $1.8 billion in 2013 to more than $6.5 billion in fiscal year 2014. Over the course of five years, about $40 billion would be devoted to rail improvement across the country, a massive expansion paid for with funds “saved” from ending military operations overseas. This would be headlined by a $5 billion “jump-start” stimulus for rail, part of a $50 billion infrastructure package the Administration is hoping Congress will pay attention to.

In many ways, the Administration’s bill is similar to past attempts at legislating major increases in funding for rail. In 2011, for instance, the government promoted a $53 billion plan to “win the future” with rail lines funded across the country. Yet Congresspeople reacted to the proposal with little interest — and members didn’t have to, because there was no authorization bill expiring. That’s what makes this year different.

The Administration’s proposal practically boils with ambition. Grants for new and improved rail lines would be heavily oriented (70 to 85%) towards “core express” alignments, which include only corridors where electric trains operating hourly at speeds of 125 mph and above run on their own, dedicated tracks. This says a lot about the Administration’s interest in focusing its energies on the “true” high-speed corridors, which at this time are only in development for California and the Northeast.

Grants in the proposal’s “rail service improvement program” would add up to $3.66 billion in the first year of activity but grow significantly over the course of five years, eventually reaching more than $6 billion a year. This would provide a substantial base of funds for serious rail projects.

But the initial allocations of funds would also ensure support for current rail lines. $2.7 billion in the first year of allocations would be dedicated to operating subsidies and projects that bring the Northeast Corridor to a state of good repair by 2025. Operating funds for Amtrak’s long-distance trains would be maintained, but those for state-supported (short-corridor) train lines would be eliminated after five years, in line with the existing law, to be replaced by profitable operations or more state support (or elimination). Amtrak’s fleet, which is on average 27.7 years old, would be upgraded, particularly in the Northeast, by 2018.

Some funding would also be provided for expanding freight capacity, reducing congestion (such as in the Chicago area), implementing Positive Train Control (which theoretically prevents trains from running into one another), and expanding access for the disabled. Much of the support would be dedicated to corridors owned by private freight rail companies.

All of the funds the Administration has proposed for an expansion of passenger rail service would do wonders for the nation’s train network. Yet even $40 billion committed over the next five years would hardly make a dent in the cost of the California High-Speed Rail project ($70-100 billion) and a new, high-speed Northeast Corridor ($150-200 billion). If the government committed similar funds over the course of five-year increments into the future, it would take a minimum of 27.5 years to complete these projects alone, with no spending on anything else. That’s 2041 before there’s true high-speed service on both coasts — at the earliest!

It’s true, of course, that any investment in new rail service will require financial and planning aid from local stakeholders, and these projects could be completed far more quickly if they were infused with local and state funds (as is the case in California).

Between Boston and Washington, the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission (NEC Commission) is tasked with developing a framework for allocating costs along the corridor. As part of that program, it has created a document that demonstrates the rail line’s critical needs and it will be looking to help Amtrak and the states better coordinate their contributions to the line.

If upgrades are going to be made to the line, it will be necessary to ensure that states along the corridor all benefit, and that they all contribute. Determining the best way for them to do that is an incredibly important task that has yet to be fully laid out. Should New Jersey, for instance, aid Amtrak in paying for a new line, if that clears capacity for New Jersey Transit’s commuter rail division? Should Delaware contribute to the cost of a new corridor if no fast trains stop in the state? How much should the states and cities along the line pay to run local trains down the intercity tracks? Before any serious aid is provided to the Northeast, there must be an agreed-upon system for Northeastern stakeholders to answer these questions.

If the FRA reauthorization provided increasing funds to a better managed railroad, assuming increasing funding from other sources (presumably including private players), there is reason to think that Obama’s program could provide substantial improvements to the nation’s foremost passenger rail corridor.

Ultimately, however, the question of whether the Administration’s proposal has any technical merit is irrelevant when there is no political backing for an increase in appropriations for rail service in the United States.

The White House’s claim that its reauthorization would be “paid for” is, quite frankly, a specious argument. To pay for infrastructure, the government wants to use money (“savings generated by capping Overseas Contingency Operations”) that it “would have spent” on foreign wars but that is no longer necessary because the country is pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet when the government is operating with a massive deficit, it’s hard to argue that that money is being shifted from one government use to another. It’s debt, pure and simple.

There are plenty of reasons to argue about the benefits of deficit spending, particularly in the midst of the continued recession, but let’s at least be honest about where the money is coming from.

There was an alternative — the Administration could have proposed a new source of revenue to pay for the program, such as an expansion in the fuel tax or the creation of a vehicle-miles travelled fee. That’s needed all sorts of transportation: The Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the Transportation Trust Fund (sourced from fuel taxes) will have a more than $90 billion shortfall by 2023 (and be operating in a deficit by 2015), imperiling any new spending on highways or urban transit.

Yet the Obama White House has shown itself hostile to any tax increase program that would affect lower- and middle-class families, and the Congress has certainly not pushed back with its own proposals. Thus the use of money “that would have” been spent on the wars to pay for the new transportation proposals. With little interest in increasing deficit spending, unfortunately, that proposal, too, is likely to go nowhere. The status quo will be reinforced.

This is a particularly sad state of affairs because the need is there, particularly in the Northeast. The FRA is currently developing a rail investment plan for the Corridor through a public consultation process, and a preliminary alternatives report was released this month, indicating a series of at least possible improvements. Amtrak, too, is desperately pushing for funds, arguing in recent weeks that the Corridor is suffering from an “investment crisis.”

Moreover, many Republicans in Congress have argued repeatedly that they are interested in funding improved rail service on the Northeast Corridor. Former House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chair John Mica (R-FL) said in 2011 that “We have to redirect our efforts to having at least one success in high-speed rail in the nation. And that high-speed rail success needs to be here in the Northeast Corridor.” Though he didn’t propose any specific way to pay for those improvements, his interest is indicative of the GOP’s willingness to compromise. (And indeed, current Committee Chair Bill Shuster also has been a supporter of Amtrak.)

Perhaps the Administration’s policies should recognize this? On the other hand, the government clearly has no interest in shutting out three-fourths of the nation from rail grants.

Anthony Foxx, who will be nominated as the government’s next Secretary of the Department of Transportation this week, has proven to be a strong supporter of rail transportation in his position as mayor of Charlotte. But his ability to promote the Administration’s rail reauthorization bill has yet to be proven. Current DOT Secretary Ray LaHood, formerly a Republican Congressman from rural Illinois, has failed to produce bipartisan consensus in favor of more transportation investment over the past four years. How can Mr. Foxx, a strong urban Democrat, do so? The House remains controlled by the GOP and the Senate may shift in that direction after next year’s midterms.

There’s a lot to be excited about the rail reauthorization bill the Administration has proposed, but there is more to be skeptical of. We have a long way to go before there is solid support in Washington for more spending on rail transportation.

Categories
Airport Congress DOT Finance Social Justice

Our Government: By the Wealthy, For the Wealthy

» Congress’ willingness to address the sequester, but only for the Federal Aviation Administration, is a disgusting sort of bipartisan agreement.

The sequester, which went into effect at the beginning of last month, cut more than $85 billion from the federal budget for this year alone. Its cuts, whose impacts will continued to be felt through 2021, were disproportionately focused on domestic programs. Public transportation, for instance, was dramatically affected: Almost $600 million was cut from funding directed towards mitigating the effects of Hurricane Sandy; another $104 million was cut from capital investment grants that fund new train and bus lines; Amtrak lost $80 million.

Other cuts, such as those to the nation’s affordable housing, Head Start, schools, and meals for seniors, are even more devastating for the nation’s least well-off.

Congress, however, has been incapable of addressing the issue, allowing the cuts to these essential programs to reinforce America’s growing concentration of wealth, low tax rates for the wealthy, and limited social welfare aid. Austerity, which is the intellectual justification supporting these cuts to federal spending, has been shown to only encourage economic stagnation — and often do so at the expense of the least well-off. Yet the national legislature has, as if in complete disinterest, sat idly by as the cuts set in.

That is, until it became obvious that the sequester was affecting the performance of the Congressional elite’s favorite program: Federal support for air travel. Congresspeople, apparently, just couldn’t support having their flights delayed.

Yesterday, the Senate unanimously approved a bill that allows the Federal Aviation Administration to transfer up to $253 million towards the air traffic control system in order to prevent furloughs that had begun this week. This morning, a large majority of House members agreed to the bill, with only a small group of mostly left-slanting Democrats opposed.

The swift and bipartisan response to the problem of slowed air travel leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. While the bill did not approve new funds to the FAA, it effectively forced the agency to shift funds around in a way to ensure that Congresspeople (and admittedly, all American air travelers) could get around the country more quickly.

There of course has been no similar rush to, for instance, shift funds away from the subsidies provided to the oil industry to support mass transit, or to shift funds away from the mortgage interest tax deduction to support affordable housing. Why? Because the Congress, in this quick response to a national problem, has shown itself to be completely concerned with government issues that affect the nation’s wealthy but unaffected by a loss of government aid to the poor. Democrats, who might have used this situation to argue for restoring essential funds for social programs, simply abdicated responsibility, mostly choosing to vote in line with the GOP here.

Federal aid to air travel has its merits, of course. But we must put in question why keeping it functional while ignoring the plight of the poor makes any sort of policy sense.

After all, air travel is largely the domain of the upper middle class and wealthy. A recent interview of U.S. residents at LAX, for example, showed that 72% of travelers who agreed to state their levels of income were making more than the U.S. median household income. Low-income people are far less likely to travel by plane than the wealthy.

Yet the federal government continues to subsidize air travel at record rates. According to the GAO, for example, air travel security provided by the TSA, which cost upward of $9 billion in 2011, has been more than 70% subsidized by U.S. taxpayers in recent years. Passengers and air carriers only commit 30% or so of the costs.

These policies amount to a shift of wealth upwards. Meanwhile, members of the House and Senate continue to fantasize about ways to further cut public transportation.