Bush Should Veto Transportation Bill

Joe Bell

President Bush should stand by his pledge to veto any transportation bill that exceeds $284 billion. That astronomical figure was a compromise with the House on Bush’s original limit of $256 billion; Bush once said he would veto the bill if it exceeded $256 billion.

Last month the Senate passed legislation that weighed in at a gargantuan $295 billion. The Senate and House are now trying to find a compromise figure for the “Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users”. All three of those figures demand renaming the bill “A Legacy for Losers” because it makes losers out of the taxpayers who have to fund it.

There are two problems with this legislation. First, there are components in the bill that have nothing or little to do with transportation and second the reason behind that unhappy fact lies with the nature of the majority of politicians who believe their first duty is to be reelected. It’s not. A politician’s first duty is to do good while in office, not spend time figuring out how to get reelected once installed. Voters shoulder a large part of the blame with respect to the second concern because they too often assess their representatives by how much pork they bring back to the district or state. Given this situation, most politicians behave like the actress in the musical “Oklahoma,” who sings, “I’m just a girl who can’t say no.”

Politicians, regardless of party affiliation, have difficulty saying “no” when it comes to spending money because bringing largess to their district or state translates into votes. Consequently, much of what is referred to as “good policy” is really “good politics.” The transportation bill is an excellent example.

Supporters say the bill contains essential infrastructure revenue and creates jobs, therefore, it grows the economy. That’s misleading. The government is not a business; it doesn’t generate income like a business. Government earns no money so, in order to get cash to spend, it has to either take it from taxpayers or borrow. Government spending never creates income, it merely transfers someone else’s income from their own pocket to somewhere else.

Someone may suggest, “When the Pentagon buys tanks it creates jobs.”

Yes, tanks must be constructed, but the revenue used to buy them still comes from taxpayers. The government can do nothing more than replace private sector purchases with public sector purchases. The key is that each dollar the government puts into the economy must first be taken from that same economy.

The transportation bill is irresponsible because government is not a business and it does not have to turn a profit. The profit that is in the minds of most politicians is reelection. Consequently, revenue is allocated to the most useless and inappropriate projects provided they will help generate political “profit” at the polls. A business must be efficient and creative if it is to survive but the government can ignore those rules. Given the public’s penchant for pork, those rules would be poison to a politician.

The transportation bill is full of fluff. It contains $3 million for the Packard Museum in Ohio. The first Packard automobile was built in 1899 and production stopped in 1958. To suggest that a museum for a car that has been out of production for nearly half a century merits federal dollars is absurd. There is also $1.5 million allocated to Michigan’s Henry Ford Museum. At least Ford still makes cars.

The bill contains an unnecessary $4 million for a bicycle and pedestrian crossing in New Orleans. If this is a legitimate federal transportation expense then one could make the case that Washington should also pay for the public’s running shoes and bicycles.

The bill contains $1.9 million for the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. The Museum web site says its mission is to “engage children in educational experiences through innovation and excellence in exhibitions, programs, and use of its collection.” That’s a fine goal but it has nothing to do with transportation.

Museums have found a home in the transportation bill as $14 million is set aside for the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, which states that its mission is to “create extraordinary learning experiences that have the power to transform the lives of children and families.”

Again, it is an admirable goal and, despite having nothing to do with transportation, the museum has managed to “transform” transportation dollars into museum money.

The bill includes funds for the Safe Routes to Schools program, aimed at reducing childhood obesity. The America Bikes organization says, “The Safe Routes to School program will help communities make it safe, convenient and fun for children to walk or bicycle to school.”

Of course, in order to accomplish these goals, the federal government must spend millions of dollars. Once upon a time children rode their bicycles or walked to school without government subsidies. The case cannot be made that Washington should help make walking or bicycling to school “fun.”

The Cato Institute has done a fine job of listing the overflowing nonsense in this bill, citing $4 million for a graffiti elimination program in Queens and Brooklyn, $1.5 million for horse trails in High Knob, Virginia, and $850,000 for a bicycle and trolley path in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

All these projects have little or nothing to do with transportation and, even if the case could be made that they do, they are local projects and should be funded at the state or local levels.

In a Cato Institute study, Gabriel Roth wrote, “States fully responsible for their own roads would have stronger incentives to ensure that funds paid by road users were spent efficiently. …in the absence of federal grants for new construction some states could prefer to better manage their existing roads rather than build new ones. Others might find ways to encourage the private sector to assume more of the burden of road provision – for example, by contracting with private firms to maintain their roads to designated standards or to provide new roads.”

One way for Washington to begin traveling this sensible path would be to allow the states to collect and keep the federal gasoline tax revenue as a state tax. It is irrational for the federal government to collect gasoline tax dollars, weave them through Washington’s web and then siphon them back to the states for local projects. Washington need not have its tentacles wrapped around every American policy.

The “Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users” is laden with projects that should not be in federal legislation. It deserves the president’s veto.

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Joseph Bell has hosted a radio talk show and is a former editorial writer/columnist for several Connecticut newspapers. A former liberal Democrat, Bell has not been on the conservative side of the aisle for very long. He voted for Clinton/Gore in 1992. Abandoning the convictions that he had held and defended through adolescence and into adulthood was not easy. Sincere soul-searching and a commitment to distinguish fact from fiction compelled him to accept that liberal ideology was bankrupt.

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