Highway Bill Runs Counter to Bush’s Wishes

It was a tough week being a conservative in the Senate. On the agenda was the lawmaker’s dream bill: a six-year, $318 billion highway spending measure that would pour billions of new dollars into states for desperately needed road and bridge construction.

In the background was President Bush, demanding that they live up to their principles and reject a bill that exceeded the bounds of fiscal responsibility.

“To me, this bill and how we resolve it is a test of character as much as it is of anything else,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “I think this vote on this bill will define us for the rest of this year and maybe in years to come.”

In the end, Graham joined opponents – 17 of them Republicans – in a 76-21 vote Thursday to approve the package which would increase spending on highways, mass transit and road safety by some 40 percent over the next six years compared with the six-year program soon to expire.

That winning margin would be enough to overcome a threatened presidential veto. The White House said the Senate bill far exceeds the administration’s own $256 billion proposal and would add to the already record-high federal deficit.

“This is the first test for the Congress when it comes to spending restraint,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

There is a precedent for the showdown. In 1987, President Reagan vetoed an $88 billion highway bill, denouncing it as a disgrace and a textbook example of pork-barrel spending. The next month the House and Senate, both controlled by Democrats, came up with the two-thirds vote needed to override the veto and enact the bill into law.

Few see this bill reaching that stage. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., says the bill could be the most important Congress takes up this year and he’ll seek a compromise. And it could be politically risky for Bush to issue his first veto on a popular, election-year bill that enriches the states and is expected to generate more than 1 million new jobs.

“I doubt seriously the president of the United States is going to veto this bill,” said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Much depends on what happens in the House, where Transportation Committee chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, is asking for $375 billion, the amount the Transportation Department says is necessary just to maintain the current infrastructure and make modest improvements.

Young recently wrote Bush about the veto threat, saying, “We are fast becoming a nation mired in gridlock” and “I am extremely disappointed with the ‘take it or leave it’ approach” taken by the president’s advisers.

But Young has proposed paying for his proposal by raising the federal gasoline tax, an idea opposed by the White House, House GOP leaders and most conservatives. Federal highway money derives almost entirely from the highway trust fund that comes from the gas tax of 18.4 cents a gallon.

Some conservatives questioned why the highway budget should get special treatment when education, health and other essential programs will receive little or no increases in the fiscally austere budget.

Passing the highway bill, said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is “the quintessential example of what we are doing wrong and how we are not stepping up to future financial straits for our children and grandchildren.”

“Never get between a congressman and asphalt, because you are destined to get run over,” said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

But there also was a sense that cost-cutting was unwise when the nation’s infrastructure is in crisis. One-third of all traffic fatalities are linked to poor road conditions; one-third of bridges are unsound or deficient; and highway system miles have increased by only 1 percent since 1988 while traffic is up 28 percent. Congestion costs the nation $67 billion a year in lost productivity and wasted fuel.

Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety agencies, said Bush’s spending proposal “really wouldn’t meet our needs,” making it more difficult to carry out safety programs in areas such as distracted driving, older drivers and rural males who don’t wear seat belts.

Dennis S. Day, spokesman for Associated General Contractors of America, said that while the Senate bill would allow for some upgrading of the system, the budget is “just barely enough to maintain it as it is.”

He said Bush’s veto of a more generous bill would demonstrate that he stands firm behind fiscal discipline, but could also resonate among voters asking themselves why they are sitting in traffic.

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The Senate bill is S. 1072.

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