Main ContentPricey bills will test GOP promises
Republicans on the warpath against federal spending will soon be put to the test on three popular but expensive pork-laden bills for farms, highways and water projects.
The major infrastructure bills are all due for major updates in the 112th Congress, forcing difficult decisions on measures that lawmakers in the past found easy to trumpet back home but could be more difficult to sell given the deficit-busting rhetoric that Republicans just rode to victory.
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Combined, the last iterations of the three giant omnibus proposals cost more than a half-trillion dollars, which would generate painful headlines for fiscal conservatives. But the bills would pay for everything from replacing decaying bridges to keeping farms in business. They are also alluring to lawmakers because they have something for virtually every state and every district.
The inherent contradiction between spending billions of dollars and cutting the budget already has conservatives equivocating.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a mandate to stop spending for roads or any other general purpose like that,” said Utah Sen.-elect Mike Lee. “There’s a mandate to adopt a balanced-budget amendment and to rein things in.”
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, a favorite of the conservative tea party movement, said the anti-spending rhetoric heard on the campaign trail translates to the highway, water and farm bills. But she’s not ready to count any of them out, especially when there could be useful projects in individual districts.
“You don’t want to cut off your nose to spite your face,” she said. “That’d be foolish to do that. I think we can be grown-ups and not try to be cute about it and just really get down to the unglamorous, very real work of making tough decisions.”
The likely chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), plans to hold hearings “looking at how every penny is spent” in anticipation of writing a farm bill in 2012 to replace the current $288 billion, five-year plan.
“The federal budget is still going to be tighter than anything we’ve seen in my 20 years up here,” Lucas said. “It’s going to [take] some tough decisions.
“When we have to write a farm bill, we’re going to have to write it with the money that will be available to us,” he added. “Who knows what it will be. But I’m almost certain it won’t be as much as the last farm bill.”
Even if lawmakers cut the overall price tag by a few million — or billion — dollars, paying for the measures is another problem, no more so than on the highway and transit bill.
Outgoing House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) floated a $500 billion bill, but his plan quickly failed because of concerns that it would come with a gas tax hike or a new system in which Americans are charged for every mile they drive. Those ideas went over like a flat tire. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who is expected to chair the panel next year, has suggested using public-private partnerships and other financing alternatives.
The problem, Mica told POLITICO, is that many of the new congressmen have vowed not to hike taxes, curbing the ability to raise new revenue.
“A lot of them have signed pledges for no new taxes,” Mica said of the incoming Republican freshmen. “And that’s fine. That fits in with what I want to do.”
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Pricey bills will test GOP promises - Darren Samuelsohn and Josh Voorhees
via politico.com
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