Blog Post 3.8 "Spending and Infrastructure"

This blog is basicall talking about how House Republicans unveiled a highway spending bill stuffed full of red meat for their conservative base. The bill would would gut funding for Amtrak and nix high-speed rail projects, and it would pay for its $260 billion price tag partly with royalties from expanded offshore oil drilling. This drilling proposal alone probably makes this bill dead-on-arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.  the federal government has maintained a Highway Trust Fund, paid for mostly by taxes on fuel, that helps cover the repair and construction of our country's mass transit, bridges, etc. 


Two new challenges have come because Americans  started caring about the fuel efficiency again, and the recession struck, and penny-pinching drivers logged fewer miles to save on gas. The White House has recently proposed fuel economy standards that are far more ambitious than anything the commission imagined. Transportation buffs have suggested moving to a system that charges motorists based on the number of miles they drive, rather than the gas they burn as a way of solving this problem

1.  It would gut funding for Amtrak and nix high-speed rail projects.

2. A transportation fund which receives money from a federal fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel and related excise taxes.

3. It is basically saying that inflation kills itself to a third of its value.

4. It is good because congress does not have to worry about people asking for bills to help lower gas.

5. HTF Baseline Forecast vs. Conservative Forecast

6. The Annual Federal Revenue Needed to Maintain Current Highway  and Transit Program Purchasing Power

7. Congress would have to make sure that current system's funding would be obselete.

8. Moving to a system that charges motorists based on the number of miles they drive, rather than the gas they burn.