The President's Proposal for Transportation Funding

In February 2011, President Obama released his annual budget along with an aggressive outline for a $556 billion, six-year transportation bill to to provide badly needed rail, road, transit and aviation improvements, create millions of new jobs, and make it easier to fund innovative projects to help bring America’s transportation network into the 21st century.

In addition to investing $50 billion up front, the plan calls for the creation of a new National Infrastructure Bank, which would leverage private capital to finance selected public projects.  Other specifics that would help set America's transportation system on the right course include:

• More than doubling the investment in public transportation to a total of $119 billion
• Creating a new "livability" program to fund sustainable communities, walking, and biking projects
• Committing to prioritize repair and maintainence over new construction, aka "Fix-it-First"
• Investing $53 billion in a national high-speed rail system
• Consolidating programs to simplify funding streams and save money on administrative costs

This proposal is a long way from becoming law, but it's a great starting place for Congress this year.  You can help get California moving again by letting Senator Boxer know you like the Administration's proposal - and urging her to model the Senate draft of the transportation bill on this plan.  Click here to take action.

The Administration's Past Statements on Transportation

The budget proposal provided more detail on the infrastructure investment plan that the White House announced last fall.  An accompanying report, “An Economic Analysis of Infrastructure Investment,” outlining the proposal, was issued by the Department of the Treasury with the Council of Economic Advisers. The plan is great news for several reasons:

1. Immediate Results: The initial $50 billion investment would fund the construction or rehabilitation of 150,000 miles of roads, 4,000 miles of passenger rail, and 150 miles of runways.
2. Job creation: The proposal would create an estimated 7.2 million jobs—that’s about half a million more than the current policy. About 90 percent of the jobs in the three sectors most affected by infrastructure spending (construction, maintenance, and retail) would be middle class jobs.
3. Return on Investment: Smart infrastructure investments “can raise economic growth, productivity, and land values, while also providing significant positive spillovers to areas such as economic development, energy efficiency, public health and manufacturing.”
4. Rewarding good projects: The plan acknowledges that not all transportation projects are created equal. The National Infrastructure Bank would incentivize innovation by prioritizing projects by performing rigorous analysis to find out which projects provide the greatest benefit to society and promote the most long-term economic gain.

90% of American families spend more on transportation than on food. By providing more choices for consumers, an expanded and diversified transportation network could increase productivity by reducing time spent in traffic and free up money to go to other sectors of the economy.

To read the full economic analysis from the White House, click here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/infrastructure_investment_report.pdf

For news and updates on federal transportation policy, visit http://t4america.org.