WFMD: Delaney To Introduce Plan To Fix The Highway Trust Fund

A provision to help prevent the Highway Trust Fund from running a deficit has been added to a bill sponsored by Congressman John Delaney (D-Md),  the Partnership to Build America Act.

The legislation would set up a infrastructure fund which would lend out money to states, counties and municipalities for repairs to roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, education and communications.

Delaney says the Highway Trust Fund almost ran out of money which is used to help fund road projects around the country. "It runs at a shortfall every year, and Congress has to fill that gap. We just approved a six-month temporary measure to fill it. So we have to find a permanent way to fund a fairly substantial annual deficit in the Highway Trust Fund. The annual deficit is about $10- to 15-billion a year," he says.

Delaney says he voted for the temporary fix for the Trust Fund.

The nation's crumbling highways are taking a toll on the American people, Delaney says. "What that means is their commutes are long, and they're bad, and they're not getting the quality services, and our companies can't compete as well as other countries that have 'A' quality infrastructure," he says.

The American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave the nation's infrastructure a grade of D+. "I don't believe in a D+ America," Delaney says.

The Highway Trust uses revenues from the gasoline tax to help pay for road projects. "But we haven't raised the gas tax in about 20 years. So what's happened is the Highway Trust Fund doesn't take in enough money to pay the money to maintain our roads," says Delaney.

He says adding the Trust Fund to the Partnership to Build America Act will help solve that problem. "But it doesn't fund it by having the government put money in; but it funds by having private companies put the money in," Delaney says. "And the private companies are given an incentive that is tied to their ability to bring back some of their overseas earnings back to the United States, which is a big problem our country has right now. A lot of companies have earnings trapped overseas because of problems with our international tax system."

He says the bill has bipartisan support. "It will create certainty funding. It will create the infrastructure fund we've designed in our bill and it will be a much larger fix to our international tax system," says Delaney. "There's a lot of momentum and a lot of excitement about it. We're planning on dropping it likely in September."