Category Archives: US House of Representatives

Before charging forward with Walker’s highway binge…

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…consider this from Reuters:

Congressional Republicans looking to hold down federal spending are considering a transportation budget blueprint that would, at a minimum, be less than half the size of the plan advanced by the White House.

In fact, the base-line figure of under $240 billion would fall below what Congress approved in similar legislation five years ago for road, bridge and transit upgrades, according to sources with knowledge of the six-year plan.

The bill for budgeting transportation priorities in the states is just beginning to take shape within the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

And if the feds don’t come through, just how will Gov. Walker get the money for his wildly over-ambitious homage to his road builder masters?

A crowd in Wauwatosa for Vukmir and Sensenbrenner

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There was a big pro-worker crowd at the Wauwatosa Library at  last night’s town hall meeting with State Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) and Republican US Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, apologists for Gov. Scott Walker.

The meeting at the Wauwatosa Public Library ended early. This photo is by Steve Brachman.

Meanwhile, in Washington…

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It’s easy to be totally focused on Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to destroy unions along with most of what is good about Wisconsin.

But, hey, they’re trying to screw you in Washington, too.

The House and Senate this week agreed to a continuing resolution that will keep the government chugging along for a whopping two weeks. The fight ain’t over yet, though.

The House, keen to cut programs that benefit anyone making less than a zillion dollars a year, is pushing for a $61 billion cut in discretionary funding, according to The Economist.

According to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Some 157,000 at-risk children up to age 5 could lose education, health, nutrition, and other services under Head Start, while funds for Pell Grants that help students go to college would fall by nearly 25 percent, under a bill passed by the House that would cut current-year non-security discretionary funding by an average of 14.3 percent.  The bill (H.R.1), which would fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2011, now must be considered by the Senate. 

H.R. 1 also would kill a program that helps low-income families weatherize their homes and permanently reduce their home energy bills, cut federal funds for employment and training services for jobless workers and for clean water and safe drinking water by more than half, and raise the risk that the WIC nutrition program may not be able to serve all eligible low-income women, infants, and children under age 5.  In addition, it would cut funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 10 percent, for the Food and Drug Administration by 10 percent, and for the Food Safety and Inspection Service by 9 percent.

Wisconsin, according to CBPP, would stand to lose $30 million in education funding — in this fiscal year!

According to CBPP:

At the same time, H.R. 1 would increase overall funding for security programs (those funded by the Defense, Homeland Security, and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs appropriation bills) by a little less than 1 percent.

Also, the 14.3 percent figure is a bit deceiving.  To achieve that level of overall cuts for non-security programs for the entirety of 2011, funding for those programs will have to fall on average by nearly one-fourth over the seven remaining months of the fiscal year.  This could make it even harder for some agencies to maintain important activities than the 14.3 percent figure for all of 2011 suggests.

The House, by the way, would not fully share the sacrifice it would impose on others, as its own budget would decline by a mere 6%.

There is not many surprised on who voted how on this bill:

Yea    WI-1    Ryan, Paul [R]
Nay    WI-2    Baldwin, Tammy [D]
Nay    WI-3    Kind, Ronald [D]
Nay    WI-4    Moore, Gwen [D]
Yea    WI-5    Sensenbrenner, F. [R]
Yea    WI-6    Petri, Thomas [R]
Yea    WI-7    Duffy, Sean [R]
Yea    WI-8    Ribble, Reid [R]

There you have it. Something besides Scott Walker to think about.

House bucks transportation lobbyists

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The House of Representatives on Wednesday opened the Federal Highway Trust Fund to other uses, including deficit reduction, according to Trucking Info.

The language of the rule appears simple but has a complex effect. It says that the House cannot consider legislation that will provide spending authority from the Highway Trust Fund or reduce the balance of the fund for any purpose other than activities authorized for highway or mass transit.

The apparent purpose is to preserve Highway Trust Fund money for highway use, but the highway community says the rule will in fact damage highway funding and planning.

Under the old rule, appropriators were required to match the obligation limits set in the current highway program. This was designed to give states the certainty they need to plan for multi-year infrastructure projects, according to a memo on the subject from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The new rule does not contain this obligation protection, the memo says. As a result, the House Appropriations Committee can now use the Highway Trust Fund to create a budgetary balance it can use to free up spending in other areas.

The new House rule, adopted under the new Republican majority, is an exclamation point of contradiction to efforts in Wisconsin, where the road-building industry successfully pushed advisory referendums in 53 counties endorsing the idea that the transportation fund should be used only for transportation projects.

Transit on the block in Washington

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Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are talking about slashing transportation funding by a lot — $7 billion to $8 billion per year, according to d.c.streetsblog.org.

It also looks like money desperately needed for transit will be the first to get the ax.

From streetsblog:

Apparently, for Republicans, the big target for cuts appears to be transit spending. Tymon suggested to the Road Gang that the current $8 billion allocated for transit annually could shrink to $5 billion. The Road Gang was, apparently, relieved to see that transit would bear the brunt of the burden of spending cuts.

Meanwhile,  Jim Tymon, staff director of the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee, said the Republicans want to bring transportation spending back to it roots in the 1950s – interstate commerce and travel, with a strong focus on the National Highway System. It all adds up to a possible revision of the longstanding 80/20 ratio governing highway and transit spending, with transit losing ground. Tymon confirmed that a new calculus could be coming.

According to Streetsblog’s sources, Tymon discussed reducing the Surface Transportation Program and eliminating federal mandates to states about how they should spend their money – for example, the “inappropriate” mandate for bike-ped projects, which he said should be up to state discretion.

Ugly, ugly, ugly.