Time to End Bipartisan Profligacy of Transportation Spending

One of the preferred methods liberals use to tax and spend is to create special "trust funds" for particular expenditures, with the intent of hiding the funds within the Treasury's general fund.  The system goes something like this: levy a tax that is supposedly earmarked for a specific expense and impounded in a trust fund (lock box); gradually purloin the fund by using it for general expenditures, while using general fund monies (and debt) to overspend on the trust fund expenditures; demand that taxpayers contribute more to the trust fund that has gone broke.  This is ostensibly what has happened with the Social Security Trust Fund.  It's also what Big Business and Big Labor desire to do with the Highway Trust Fund, which was modeled after the SS fund.

The Highway Trust Fund, much like the SS Trust Fund, is maintained by money from the general treasury that is credited to the fund.  It was established in the '50s to fund the Interstate Highway System.  Beginning in 1983, Congress began siphoning off some of the gas tax revenue for the great inviolable sacred cow; the urban mass transit system.  Today, mass transit receives $10.2 billion in annual appropriations.

The extent of the credit from the general treasury was supposed to be commensurate to the revenue generated by the gas tax, paid by all motorists and users of the highway system.  Not surprisingly, the demarcation between revenue sources became muddled over the years, and as pork barrel spending grew ubiquitously among our esteemed leaders, the funding authorized for the trust fund far outpaced the revenue from the gas tax.  In 2008, the trust fund was completely depleted, compelling Congress to replenish the fund with an additional $35 billion over the past few years.

The authorization for funding the Highway Trust Fund is typically renewed every six years in a transportation reauthorization bill that creates six years' worth of mandatory spending that is not subject to the annual appropriations process.  The Department of Transportation then takes this money and doles it out to the states.  States with more aggressive porkers inevitably receive more funding.  These bills were always bipartisan endeavors of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as both parties enjoyed unlimited pork and goodwill with their constituents.

The 2010 elections and the Tea Party changed all that.

Dozens of Republicans Vote for Handouts to Big Labor

Big Labor GOPers supporting Obama's administrative power grabs, crony capitalism, wage controls, and fleecing of taxpayer.

Yesterday, the House passed the largely non-controversial Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Appropriations (MilCon) bill for FY 2012.  Unfortunately, it is these non-controversial bills which provide a safe haven for meretricious policy initiatives through the rapid fire amendment process.  While everyone was focused on presidential politics, the House passed an amendment forcing government contractors to use labor unions on federal construction projects.  Oh, and like most bad legislation, this amendment passed by one vote, with the help of 27 Republicans.

In 2009, Obama used his signature power grab tool; an Executive Order, forcing all private companies to sign a project labor agreement (PLA) in order to bid on federal construction projects.  PLA's compel the private contractor to use only unionized workers for the perspective project.  This executive power grab is nothing more than an election payback to big labor, which would ostensibly purloin the taxpayer with forced collective bargaining for all public construction projects.

This malevolent executive order would also discriminate against non-union workers.  Keep in mind that only a small percentage of private sector construction workers are unionized.  As Congressman John Culberson (R-TX) said on the House floor, "So the Obama administration through this executive order is attempting to unionize any private company in America that wants to do business with the federal government."  Then again, Democrats have been paying out their union cronies with the blood and sweat of American taxpayers for years.

Last month, Republicans on the Appropriations Committee inserted language in the MilCon bill to nullify any executive mandate for project labor agreements.  Ironically, it was a Republican, union shill Rep. Steve LaTourette, who proposed an amendment to strike out the anti PLA section from the bill.  He rounded up 26 other Republicans and helped Democrats preserve Obama's pro-union discrimination by 204-203!