Yes, the Social Security Trust Fund is chronically ill and surgery will be required to keep it alive. Medicare is even worse, it's in the ER to staunch even shorter-term financial hemmorhaging. Worst of all, however, is the Highway Trust Fund which will be bankrupt in 2009 absent significant changes.
Recognizing that the nation's economic competitiveness is at stake, the business community has created a series of lobbying coalitions, each with its own prescription for what ails federal transportation funding. Last week, the US Chamber testified before the House Budget Committee; its commentary well sums the situation:
It is clear that chronic underinvestment is a major contributing factor to the problems across all modes of transportation; however, misuse of funding, a lack of resource prioritization and poor comprehensive planning must also be addressed....the Chamber encourages Congress to spend infrastructure dollars more wisely, ensure that states do not divert their transportation funding away from its intended use in the name of "flexibility," invest in new technologies, attract more private investment for projects, and encourage public-private partnerships at the state and local levels.
The Chamber identified four goals in its "Let's Rebuild America" program.
1. A data-driven approach. The RAND Corporation says the $13 trillion US economy will grow to $20 trillion by 2020 -- a data-driven approach will overcome public skepticism about "pork barrel" transportation spending
2. Public education is needed, with a particular emphasis helping Americans understand the linkages of transportation to jobs, clean air, road safety and overall quality of life.
3. Many procedural obstacles hinder timely transportation improvements; removing these obstructions will
unleash and unlock the potentially hundresd of billions of dollars in private investment just waiting to be spent on critically needed power plants, pipelines, refineries, transmission lines, broadband lines, port facilities, railroads, airports, and privately constructed roadways.
4. We need a national debate on policy options for transportation funding including how to prevent diversion of monies extracted from citizens for transportation improvements that end of supporting other programs.
The Chamber asks: "Are we still a nation of builders? Are we still a can-do society?"
