PUBLIC OFFICIALS like to kick the can down the road, particularly when faced with a complex issue that requires massive amounts of public money. But if they continue to choose this course of inaction for funding roads and our national infrastructure, there will be no roads for the can — or, for that matter, us — upon which to travel.
At the end of this month, the federal highway trust fund will go broke — again. Rather than commit to a long-term funding solution for rebuilding and maintaining our nation’s roads, bridges, airports and rail systems, Congress continues to pass short-term fixes. Put simply: You can’t continually put a Band-Aid on a bridge.
The House has passed a short-term fix with the hope of passing something more substantial at year’s end. The Senate is disinclined to follow suit. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to pass a highway bill that would ensure funding for a period longer than six months. But it is not just time frames that separate the two chambers of Congress.
One House plan would make a change in international tax policy, creating a one-time tax on some of the profits U.S. corporations leave overseas. That could provide more than $200 billion for infrastructure projects. Senate plans include a change in the rate of return federal employees receive on retirement investments, selling off some of the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and using some of the settlement money from banks relating to the housing crisis of the last decade.
It is hard to see how Congress could pass a bill that would lower retirement income for federal employees or why money generated from settlements with banks over the housing meltdown would be best used for infrastructure. While the House plan has the potential of generating the large number needed to tackle the daunting challenge of repairing infrastructure neglected for decades, rewriting the federal tax code in less than six months seems a nearly impossible task.
We do not claim to know whether any of the above solutions is best. The federal gasoline tax also could be raised, but we have seen how politically unpopular a similar idea has been in New Jersey. And as cars and trucks become more fuel-efficient, gasoline-based revenue will decrease, not increase.
Congress — at present — finds taxation an anathema. In some cases, Congress is correct. But roads, bridges and rails are not ephemeral concepts. Repairing a bridge is no different from repairing a home. Neither structure can be built to last forever. And the federal government has a part to play in maintaining a modern interstate system of roads and rail. No less a Republican than President Dwight Eisenhower saw the wisdom in that.
In New Jersey, Governor Christie’s presidential ambitions all but guarantee that no long-term fix to the state’s Transportation Trust Fund is likely before 2018, when a new governor takes office. Unfortunately, state infrastructure will continue to deteriorate regardless of the political consequences. The longer the delay in dealing with aging bridges and tunnels, the more costly the repairs and the more likely that a catastrophic event will wreak havoc on local economies and perhaps on human lives as well.
We cannot kick this can down the road much longer, because the road will not be there. Enough with the Band-Aids. Infrastructure needs something concrete
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