[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 7 (Thursday, February 5, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S433-S434]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE HIGHWAY TRUST FUND

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I wanted to talk today on the same subject 
Senator Byrd spoke on earlier and that Senator Chafee also spoke on 
earlier. Without getting into a debate with Senator Chafee, I want to 
respond to a couple of things he said.
  I want to remind my colleagues that in the American system of 
Government, we have a series of dedicated revenues where we collect 
specific taxes and fees and we tell the American people that those 
taxes or those fees are dedicated to a specific purpose. When you go to 
a filling station, if you live in a State that has banned the little 
clip that holds the nozzle in the ``on'' position so you have to stand 
there while it's pumping gas into your car or your truck, I am sure 
that you have read the sign on the gasoline pump. It basically says, if 
you wanted to reduce it down to good news and bad news, that the bad 
news is that a third of the price that Americans are paying for 
gasoline is taxes. But the good news is every American is assured on 
every gasoline pump in America that those taxes are going to build 
highways. Virtually every American in this era of self-service has read 
that sign on the gasoline pump, the bad news and the good news.
  The problem is, the good news is not true. The bad news is sure 
enough honest to God true. But the good news is not true. Today, on 
average, somewhere between 25 cents and 30 cents out of every dollar of 
gasoline taxes is not spent on roads. So that when we tell the American 
people that the gasoline tax is a user fee for roads, as is often the 
case in Government, we are not totally leveling with the American 
people.
  Senator Byrd and I would like to partially change that. I want to 
explain exactly what we are doing. As my colleagues will remember, in 
1993, for the first time in American history, the President pushed 
through Congress a permanent gasoline tax, 4.3 cents per gallon, that 
was not dedicated to the highway trust fund, and every penny of it was 
spent by Government on a broad array of projects and programs, none of 
which had anything to do with highways. You will remember that I 
offered an amendment in the Finance Committee that was adopted by the 
Senate, ultimately adopted by the conference, voted on in the House and 
Senate, signed into law by the President, that took that 4.3-cent-a-
gallon tax on gasoline away from the general revenue and put it in the 
highway trust fund, where it belongs.
  We now are looking at a situation where, if we don't take action to 
allow a competition where those of us who believe that, relatively 
speaking, we are spending too much on many programs and not spending 
enough on highways, we are going to have a situation where the trust 
fund could rise to almost $80 billion, where we have collected $80 
billion between now and the end of the highway bill that should be 
before the Senate today. We will have collected $80 billion, telling 
people the money was going to highways, and, yet, every penny of it 
will have been spent on something else.
  Senator Byrd and I have said that that is not honest. Senator Byrd 
and I have said that our amendment, basically, has to do in part with 
honesty in Government.
  Our dear colleague from Rhode Island has said that this has something 
to do with the budget surplus, or at least has talked about surpluses 
in the trust fund and the budget in such a way that people might get 
confused between the two. So I want to make it very clear what the 
Byrd-Gramm amendment does and what it does not do. In fact, anybody who 
wants to read the amendment can understand exactly what it does, 
because it is a very simple amendment.
  Basically, what the amendment says is this: We have put the 4.3 cent 
a gallon tax on gasoline into the trust fund. We had a surplus of $23 
billion that had already been collected to build roads but has been 
spent on something else. What Senator Byrd and I are saying, in 
essence, is, all right, we ought to get that money back. Fairness would 
dictate it goes to roads. It was collected for that purpose.
  An analogy I have used is that it is like a rustler has come out and 
has been stealing your cattle and you catch him. Senator Byrd and I 
called the sheriff and the sheriff has come out and arrested this 
rustler. Being benevolent, we have said two remarkable things. No. 1, 
we are not going to hang you,

[[Page S434]]

and, No. 2, we are not going to make you give any of the cattle back 
that you have already rustled. All we are saying is stop rustling our 
cattle. What you have already taken from the highway trust fund and 
spent on other things, go and sin no more.
  Their response is, ``Well, it's great to spend money on highways, but 
where''--going back to my rustling analogy--``where are we going to get 
our beef? If we can't raid the highway trust fund to fund other 
programs of Government, just where are we going to get our money?''
  That's not my problem. We have Members of the Senate who were looking 
at that $80 billion and saying, ``Great, if we can prevent that from 
being spent on highways, we could spend it to pay arrears of the U.N. 
dues, we could spend it on social programs, we could give it to the 
Legal Services Corporation, we could do all kinds of things with it.'' 
So they are not happy that Senator Byrd and I want to allow the money 
to be spent on highways.
  After, basically, raising the concern that they are going to be 
disadvantaged because they wanted to spend the money in inappropriate 
ways, now they are trying to say that Senator Byrd's amendment and my 
amendment would bust the budget. It is not so. Our amendment does not 
raise the spending caps in the budget. Our amendment does not provide 
any authority or mandate or excuse for violating the budget agreement 
we reached last year. All our amendment says is this: You are 
collecting this money in gasoline taxes. You are telling people that 
you are spending the taxes to build roads. At least allow those who 
want to deliver on what you are promising the American people the right 
to compete in the appropriations process with every other program of 
the Federal Government.
  The answer for those who don't want the money spent on roads is, 
don't bring up the highway bill; wait and vote on this as part of the 
budget. Now here is what they hope to do. They hope to convince some of 
our Democratic colleagues that if they let the highway trust fund be 
spent on highways, that there is strong support for building new roads, 
which the country desperately needs and, after all, we said the money 
was being spent for it when we collected the gasoline taxes. So they 
are worried that we will build roads or they are going to argue that we 
will build roads and that will take money away from other programs, so 
if you want other programs, you don't want to build roads.

  They are going to try by getting this all involved in the budget so 
it can be commingled with President Clinton's proposal to increase 
spending by $130 billion and bust the caps. They are hoping to convince 
Republicans that our proposal is no different than the President's 
proposal.
  The truth is, all we are asking is that money collected in gasoline 
taxes for highways be authorized to be spent on highways, and then we 
have to have competition for available money. And under the budget, if 
we spend the money on roads, obviously, we are going to have to set 
priorities, and every Member of the Senate will have to make those 
decisions.
  But this is not a budget issue. We are not talking about breaking the 
spending caps. This is an issue about highways. Let me tell you why it 
is critically important.
  The current highway bill ends on May 1. It is highly unlikely that we 
will get another extension of the highway bill. Construction projects 
on roads and highways all over America are going to come to a 
screeching halt on May 1. In my part of the country, which is more 
blessed by God than others, we have long building periods where people 
can construct through a long spring and summer and fall and actually, 
for all practical purposes, build year round. But in many States of the 
Union, they have a 3- or 4-month window when they have to build 
highways.
  So if we follow the prescription of the people who don't support 
building more roads, who want to spend the highway trust fund on other 
things, we are going to delay, and by delaying, we may get no highway 
bill, the States in the northern part of the country may lose their 
whole building window within this year and, finally, people need to 
make plans. They need to hire workers. They need to buy capital 
equipment. We have major highway projects that are partially completed, 
so we have tied up all this money in building new interstates and new 
bypasses, and the States, if we are forced to stop construction, will 
get no use out of those projects.
  So I want to urge the majority leader to bring up the highway bill 
and bring it up next week. I want to make it clear to my colleagues, I 
will not support breaking the spending cap. I would not author an 
amendment that broke the spending cap. Our amendment does not raise the 
spending cap, and that is not what the Senator from Rhode Island is 
worried about. He is worried that we won't break the spending cap and 
that highways will compete money away from other programs. Well, I am 
not worried about that. That is exactly what I want to do, and I think 
it is the right thing to do. We have 51 cosponsors. We would love to 
have more.
  I thank the Chair for the Chair's indulgence, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.

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