Resources for Infrastructure Week
The White House has dubbed this week "infrastructure week" to talk about the infrastructure proposals in the President's recent budget, including an extra $200 billion in infrastructure spending, shifting air traffic control from the federal government to a non-profit organization, and reducing future highway spending. We'll release analysis later this week explaining the proposals in more depth.
Below is some of our recent work on transportation.
The Highway Trust Fund is persistently short of funds, with dedicated spending much higher than dedicated revenues. Although the most recent highway bill transferred enough money into the Trust Fund to last until 2021 (funded largely by a budget gimmick), the highway shortfall remains.
In CBO: Federal Investment is Good for Long-Term Growth - If It's Paid For we explain CBO's recent analysis that increasing federal investment can boost growth, but a deficit-financed bill hurts growth.
We have two recent papers on transportation:
- Trust or Bust: Fixing the Highway Trust Fund explains the insolvency problem facing highway funding.
- The Road to Sustainable Highway Spending showed one possible solution to bring highway spending in line with revenue, relying on some general revenue transfers, gas tax increases, and limits on future transportation spending to what is financed.
In addition to that one possible plan, we also laid out a myriad of other options for Buying Time for a Highway Solution with General Funds, restoring highway solvency by increasing current revenue, by reducing spending, or with new revenue sources.
We also explained Why Lawmakers Should Fix the Budgetary Treatment of the Highway Trust Fund and why today's low interest rates are not a sufficient reason to borrow for increased infrastructure spending.
You can also see all our transportation analysis on our blog.
