Highway Trust Fund is nearly broke

Another symptom of the least productive Congress ever.

DAYTON, Ohio — On the road in a tour bus this week, the U.S. transportation secretary is spreading some bad news: the government’s Highway Trust Fund is nearly broke. If allowed to run dry, that could set back or shut down projects across the country, force widespread layoffs of construction workers and delay needed repairs and improvements.

Anthony Foxx kicked off an eight-state bus trip in Ohio to whip up public support for congressional approval of legislation to keep federal transportation aid flowing to states for another four years, and possibly longer. But Congress will have to act fast. The trust fund — the source of much of the aid — is forecast to essentially run dry sometime before the end of the federal fiscal year Sept. 30, and possibly as early as late August.

If that happens, the government will have to slow down or even halt payments to states, which rely on federal aid for most major highway projects. Uncertainty over whether there will be enough funds in the coming months is already causing officials in states like Arkansas, California and Colorado to consider delaying planned projects.

Foxx’s warnings this week echo ones by President Barack Obama, who cautioned in February that unless Congress finished a bill by summer’s end then “we could see construction projects stop in their tracks.” But there is little interest among politicians in an election year to consider raising gasoline taxes.

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The 18.4 cents a gallon federal gas tax was last increased in 1993 as part of a deal between President Bill Clinton and Congress to raise money to help reduce the federal deficit and pay for transportation programs. Clinton was fiercely criticized by Republicans as a tax-raiser, and the issue was one of several reasons Democrats lost control of the House and Senate the following year.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20140415/BIZ/140419417