Serious pension funding issues have no place being hidden in a transportation funding bill. This is especially true if the pension language could cause an even greater taxpayer bailout of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Shifting Private Pension Costs to…
Abstract: The President’s 2013 budget, released on February 13, repeats the stale and unsuccessful policies of the past three years. The Administration’s apparent vision is one of bigger government, more spending, higher taxes, and deeper deficits. At a time when runaway spending and swelling…
Abstract: Wasteful, inequitable, and bristling with burdensome regulations, the Federal Highway Program is in dire need of reform. Although Members of Congress have attempted to enact changes in the past, the influence of many lobbyists and influential constituencies continues to thwart the process. By…
As Congress gears up for another year, reining in spending and debt should top the agenda, but one issue heading squarely against that priority is reauthorization of the transportation program. The last transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU, was marked by gluttonous excesses, which ranged from its porcine spending increases and wasteful spending…
Abstract: Given tight federal budget restraints and shrinking transportation trust fund revenues, states and the federal government need to find alternative financial resources to finance needed transportation infrastructure projects, especially maintaining and expanding the capacity of the Interstate Highway System. Increased use of public–private…
In October, the Obama Administration took the unprecedented step of revoking funds already awarded to the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) to study the feasibility of absorbing the independent turnpike commission, which operates the Ohio Turnpike, into ODOT or leasing the turnpike to private investors. Unfortunately for Ohio, neither option…
As this Congress and President continue their struggle to reauthorize the federal highway program (now more than two years overdue), their focus should be maximizing the value of each dollar spent by directing available funds to programs that improve mobility and safety on the roads. To do this, Congress should…
My name is Ronald. D. Utt. I am the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation. Until recently, federal…
Chairman Conrad, Ranking Member Sessions, Members of the Senate Budget Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is J.D. Foster. I am the Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are…
In response to the credit downgrade by Standard & Poor’s in August, the grim reports on the state of the economy, and the collapse of the stock and financial markets in the week after the downgrade, President Barack Obama has re-engaged with the issue of America’s faltering economy and the…
As is apparent from President Obama’s declining approval ratings, the majority of Americans have lost confidence in the ability of Washington’s leadership to get the economy moving again. More to the point, many now recognize that the $814 billion in spending authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)…
Abstract: President Barack Obama’s high-speed rail program promises to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in federal and state funds to provide mediocre passenger rail service to an extremely small fraction of travelers. In this time of tight budgets, neither the federal government nor…
There’s a simple solution to this traffic problem. We’ll have business build the roads and government build the cars. —Will Rogers The quote above, attributed to one of America’s preeminent comedians and social commentators, came at the dawn of the automobile…
Delivered July 30, 2007 immigration has become the most controversial, complex, and sensitive subject we face today. It directly affects our economy, our culture, and our future. To ensure that any action we take on immigration policy is in our national interest, we need to approach the subject with reason and facts.…
With many states facing budget deficits, rest stops on interstate highways--which require significant sums to maintain but provide no revenue to the state--are on the chopping block. To save $12 million a year, Virginia closed 18 of the state's 42 rest areas. Georgia, Arizona, Vermont, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and…
Growing dissatisfaction with federal transportation policy and government’s mismanagement of the highway trust fund have encouraged many in Congress and in state governments to seek ways to overhaul the system or to extract themselves from it. Since the mid-1990s, legislation has been introduced each year in Congress to phase out…
Last week, the independent California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group recommended that the state legislature not...…
Yesterday, I wrote about the House-passed bill H.R. 2887, which would reauthorize expiring aviation and surface...…
In a process familiar to any troubled sub prime borrower, the current federal highway reauthorization bill spends more...…
The steep rise in gas prices has had a dramatic impact on American driving habits. According to Federal Highway...…