By digging in his heals on the highway reauthorization bill, President Bush not only draws a sharp distinction between himself and Sen. Kerry - who sits on the Senate Transportation Committee, supported the bill in Committee and announced that had he attended the full Senate vote he would have voted yea - Bush also has positioned himself to propose a bold new reform to federal highway programs.
Despite spending huge sums of money motorists pay in gasoline taxes, federal transportation programs, which cost $37 billion in 2004, fail to deliver the essentials of what motorists deserve in return for the fuel taxes they pay Uncle Sam: less congestion, greater mobility, improved safety, lower pollution and higher road quality. They have instead turned into the world's greatest pork barrel.
According to a recent Heritage Foundation report by Dr. Ronald Utt, "special interests absorb as much as 40 percent of all federal highway spending, and that share is growing as Congress grants other influential constituencies access to the (highway) trust fund - where once it had the goal of providing America with the best transportation system in the world, today its purpose is little more than to accommodate a growing list of influential constituencies lucky enough to have their hand in the piggy bank." As a result of this raid of the highway trust fund, Utt observes, "$700 billion (inflation adjusted) of federal highway spending since 1970 has added only 7 percent to our road system."
Utt makes an innovative suggestion that I hope the Bush administration will consider seriously, namely "establish(s) explicit and measurable goals related to maintaining the quality of our interstate system, enhancing mobility, reducing pollution and relieving congestion." They could call the proposal, "No Motorist Left in Line."
Such a proposal would be consistent with other reforms the Bush administration has proposed, in areas as diverse as foreign aid (Millennium Challenge Accounts) and federal aid to education (No Child Left Behind Act), which links federal money, performance and accountability. In return for accepting federal money, President Bush's attitude is that recipients should be required to achieve measurable improvements in concrete areas of performance. Why should state and local spending of federal transportation dollars be any different?