Transportation Weekly is reporting that a new $75 billion economic stimulus package, to be paid with TARP, is currently in the works for passage early next year. The package will include about $48 billion in new infrastructure spending, including $37.3 billion for the U.S. Department of Transportation under near-identical conditions to those accompanying the $48.1 billion in the first stimulus Act for USDOT. Highways and bridges would get $27.5 billion.
The position here is that Congress should be working to provide a long term solution to transportation funding instead of providing short term band aids that do not adequately address the true infrastructure needs of the country. State transportation departments are cutting projects because adequate funding does not exist in the long term program. The long term program needs to be addressed now.
Stimulus dollars under the rules of last year will only address more bandaid projects.
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