Recovering the Texas Gas-Tax Subsidy to Other States
From time to time, it can be useful when the House Majority Leader is from your state:
U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay threatened Tuesday to block congressional passage of a six-year transportation funding authorization unless the bill sends more highway dollars to Texas.
"I am working on the conference committee to guarantee that bill will not go on the floor of the House until we guarantee every state gets at least 95 cents of every dollar back that they put into the highway fund," the U.S. House majority leader told a lunch meeting in Houston of the Alliance for Interstate 69 Texas. "It's high time Texas highway dollars stayed here to create Texas jobs."
DeLay and other Texas Congress members have worked for years to boost the state's share of federal transportation funding. U.S. motorists pay an 18.4-cent federal tax on every gallon of fuel purchased. That money is deposited in the Highway Trust Fund to pay for roads and mass-transit projects. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the state gets back 86 cents of every dollar of gas tax its residents send to Washington.
The Sugar Land Republican's comments were among his strongest yet indicating he would prevent passage of the House-Senate conference report if it doesn't improve Texas' take. As majority leader, DeLay controls the House agenda.
"Since the current highway-funding system was established in 1956, Texas has lost more than $5.3 billion because of its status as a 'donor' state," DeLay told the gathering of 189 alliance members at the Hilton Americas-Houston. "The federal government has been taking Texas dollars out of our state and giving them to other states to create jobs there.
"There's shared sacrifice, and then there's highway robbery. This is unacceptable and has to stop."
The Majority Leader has this exactly right. Given the number of years Republicans have controlled the House and had strong Texans (DeLay, Armey before his retirement) in the leadership, it's a little surprising that Texas continues to be such a donor state when it comes to federal gas tax revenues (although in fairness, consideration only comes up every six years or so).
It's hardly a surprise that the Comical editorial staff did not see fit to praise the Majority Leader's latest efforts in today's edition. Nor are liberal political bloggers saying much about it (I'm going to pick on Charles Kuffner, who takes time out from commenting on the Delay protests at UH-Clear Lake to offer the following):
Nothing says "I need help with my re-election effort" quite like a little pork-barrelling.
Against Richard Morrison? Come on. Barring indictment (highly unlikely in my view), the Majority Leader cruises to victory -- the only question being whether he polls to his district's potential, or some usual supporters stay home and hurt his margin of victory.
The bigger question here is whether this is a good public policy position for Texas. It is, and in this case, it's nice to have the House Majority Leader weighing in with a position that's indisputably good for Texas, and one that the Texas delegation (Democrats and Republicans) supports.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/25/04 21:02 | Texas | Technorati
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
Comments
From the part you didn't quote:
"A funding dispute with the White House has stalled the legislation's final approval, which was due last October, and limited the amount of extra highway dollars that can be allocated to states that help subsidize road building in other parts of the country."
So if the Chron is supposed to pat DeLay on the head for this, are they also supposed to chastise the White House for their obstruction? I'm just asking.
Posted by Charles Kuffner @ 07:08 on 08/26/04
If their reason for constantly criticizing DeLay is truly that he doesn't deliver federal transportation dollars for the area, then yes -- he should get credit when he does work to deliver those dollars. They praised him for what they consider a recent "flip flop" on rail (I'm not convinced his position has changed all that much, but that needs to be fleshed out), so it doesn't seem like such a stretch to praise him for working for Texas on this one. If that makes the White House the bogeyman, I wouldn't think that would displease the Comical editorial staff.
The DMN transportation reporter quoted Pete Sessions speaking at an event also covered by Lucas Wall. Even if the editorial page isn't going to comment on DeLay's threats, it would have been interesting if Lucas Wall had followed up with Chris Bell for a local news story to parallel the one in the DMN.
Posted by Kevin @ 08:28 on 08/26/04
Add Comments
While it is not required, creating an account for commenting provides a number of benefits (such as comment editing and bypassing the captcha challenge). You may log in to your account here.
No flames or impolite behavior. Any questions, see the site policies. Older posts are moderated (because of spammers), so if your post does not appear immediately, that could be why.
HTML will be stripped. URLs will be transformed into hyperlinks.
[b]text[/b] will produce bold text. [i]text[/i] will produce italicized text.
Comments for this post must be approved before being published. Thank you!
BLOG
» Create Account
» Log In
DISCLAIMER
Content and design copyright © 1997-2008, Kevin Whited.
Posts represent the views of Kevin Whited (and occasional guest bloggers) only, and do not necessarily reflect the views of employers, family, friends, or significant others.