{"id":4889,"date":"2005-08-04T10:45:34","date_gmt":"2005-08-04T14:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=4889"},"modified":"2005-08-04T10:45:34","modified_gmt":"2005-08-04T14:45:34","slug":"what-the-transportation-bills-price-tag-doesnt-tell-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/what-the-transportation-bills-price-tag-doesnt-tell-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What the transportation bill’s price tag doesn’t tell us"},"content":{"rendered":"

For over a year, there was an odd, simmering fight<\/a> between Congress and the president over the transportation bill. Bush told lawmakers, in no uncertain terms, that the legislation could cost no more than $284 billion. Lawmakers were prepared to risk, and possibly overturn, a White House veto on the issue. (Never<\/i> get between a member of Congress and highway pork.)<\/p>\n

Negotiators, however, sat down and struck a deal. Congress would go over Bush’s cap, but only by $2 billion. After all, what’s $2 billion between friends? Congress passed the bill last week, the president has said he’d sign it, and discounting those who care about responsible government, everyone’s happy.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, though, the price tag is not quite what it seems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Bush has never exercised his veto power, but he brandished it over major transportation legislation for two years, threatening Congress with the V-word should lawmakers break the bank in pursuit of home-state road and bridge work.<\/p>\n

So when Congress delivered transportation legislation with a price tag put at $286.4 billion, the administration claimed victory, noting the final amount was just $2 billion above the White House’s limit and far below what senior members of Congress wanted.<\/p>\n

But as details of the measure came under closer inspection this week, the spending picture got a bit blurry. In a piece of legislative legerdemain, Congress managed to stuff an extra $8.5 billion into the highway bill and still meet Mr. Bush’s demands by requiring that the added money be turned back to the Treasury on Sept. 30, 2009, the day the bill expires.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The transportation bill was an embarrassment anyway — the $1.5 million for a single bus stop<\/a> in Anchorage, Alaska, was my personal favorite — but this is absurd. A sunset clause of $8.5 billion in highway money? Does anyone, anywhere, actually believe that states are going to give the money back in four years? Please.<\/p>\n

Don’t forget, this isn’t just Congress. The Bush administration has acknowledged that it knows about the extra $8.5 billion and accepts the deceptive price tag.<\/p>\n

“I am concerned the president is going to lose any remaining credibility on fiscal discipline if he signs it,” said Pat Toomey, president of the conservative Club for Growth, who crusaded against excessive spending in his days as a member of the House from Pennsylvania.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I’m concerned that there are people who believe Bush still has credibility on fiscal discipline at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For over a year, there was an odd, simmering fight between Congress and the president over the transportation bill. Bush told lawmakers, in no uncertain terms, that the legislation could cost no more than $284 billion. Lawmakers were prepared to risk, and possibly overturn, a White House veto on the issue. (Never get between a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}