[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3422-H3423]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             TRUTH-IN-BUDGETING/TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUNDS

  (Mr. WAMP asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be a cosponsor of Transportation 
and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bud Shuster's bill, H.R. 842, to 
take the transportation trust funds off-budget.
  These trust funds were established to guarantee that taxes paid by 
transportation users go to support the infrastructure needs of that 
mode of transportation--highways, aviation, waterways, and harbors.
  The integrity of the user fee system, whereby those who use a public 
service pay the bulk of the cost, has been undermined by a system where 
users get back much less in services and goods than they pay into the 
system.
  [[Page H3423]] Not only have traditional sources of revenue for the 
trust funds been raided for other uses by the tax-and-spend liberals, 
but the trust funds have also been used as a huge cushion of cash on 
the balance sheet to mask the true size of the deficit.
  I also believe that we should only collect taxes when we need the 
money, and use it for that specified purpose for which it was 
collected.
  This same logic is why conservatives pushed for years to take the 
Social Security Trust Fund off budget and be honest with its 
accounting--the same reasoning applies here.
  This kind of honesty and accountability is at the heart of the 
Contract With America. When I circulated a letter among my freshman 
colleagues just last week, asking them to join me in supporting truth 
in trust fund budgeting, I collected 43 signatures in 3 days.
  My fellow freshmen are behind this because it makes common sense and 
it is the right thing to do.

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