As a professional civil engineer of many years and as a concerned private citizen, I am writing about the Trust Fund Restoration Act (Senate Bill 729), which is expected to reach the Senate for consideration very soon. Senate Bill 729 is structured to protect key Transportation Trust Funds.
Despite enormous and well-documented national infrastructure needs–$212 billion for highways, $78 billion for bridges, $50 billion for airports, $18 billion for transit and $3 billion for inland waterways–more than $31 billion has been allowed to accumulate in the Highway, Airport and Airway, Inland Waterway and Harbor Maintenance Funds. All four trust funds are financed by dedicated user fees such as the federal motor-fuels tax in the case of the highway funds. By law these funds can only be spent on infrastructure improvements.
The current “unified” budget process, however, has encouraged congressional and administration budget leaders to succumb to the temptation of using these large unexpected cash balances to mask the true size of the federal budget deficit. Because this budget gimmick only masks the true size of the deficit, these transportation user fees are actually being used to indirectly support other categories of federal spending.
Such a ploy breaks faith with transportation users who have paid into these four trust funds over the last 30 years in the belief their taxes would support needed infrastructure investments. Senate Bill 720, like House Bill 842, which was passed in the House of Representatives on April 17 as the Truth in Budgeting Act, would move these transportation trust funds “off-budget,” which will eliminate the incentive to allow large cash balances to accrue.
Chicago’s many bascule bridges, as well as the many fixed bridges, are in constant need of maintenance and repair. This is mainly the result of continued underfunding by the state for these repairs, not to mention the lack of federal funding.
Passage of The Trust Fund Restoration Act will make these key transportation trust funds more likely to be available for infrastructure investment.
