[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 20 (Wednesday, February 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               HIGHWAY TRUST FUND AND AVIATION TRUST FUND

  (Mr. SHUSTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, we Republicans quite properly emphasize our 
Contract With America. But our original Contract With America was 
signed in 1956, when President Eisenhower and the Congress created the 
Interstate Highway System and created the highway trust fund. This was 
a contract between the American traveling public and the Federal 
Government. The gas tax went into the highway trust fund solely to 
build highways. Later the airline ticket tax went into the aviation 
trust fund to help build airports.
  But, Mr. Speaker, we have broken that contract. We shamelessly used 
the money dedicated for highway construction to hide the true size of 
the Federal Government deficit, which is dishonest and unethical. Three 
times in the past Republicans in this House voted overwhelmingly to 
remove these trust funds from the general trust fund budget, but we did 
not have a majority.
  Now is the time to renew our 39-year-old Contract With America. Now 
is the time to take the transportation trust funds out of the general 
fund budget. This is a truth-in-budgeting issue. And truth, after all, 
is what contracts are all about.

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