Jared Huffman: “Since 2009, this Congress has failed to make some hard choices. As a result, highway, transit, and safety programs have…”

“Since 2009, this Congress has failed to make some hard choices. As a result, highway, transit, and safety programs have limped along with flat funding. States and transit authorities have been unable to plan major, long-term projects as they watch this Congress extend these programs for a few months at a time, often waiting until midnight of the next government shutdown, and then extend them again with short- term patches. The Federal gas tax, which pays for these highway and public transit investments, has not been raised in 22 years. Its purchasing power has fallen 40 percent. And for all the progress we made last week under Speaker Ryan in terms of allowing policy amendments to be offered to the bill, let us all recognize that the Republican leadership blocked every single proposed amendment regarding the funding inadequacies in this bill. Democrats and Republicans offered a wealth of options to fund the program: increasing the gas tax; using repatriated revenue to increase investment in the United States; creating a bipartisan, bicameral task force to address the shortfall in the highway trust fund; and simply indexing the gas tax to account for the cost of inflation. Regrettably, the Republican leadership, despite all the pledges of openness, would not let this House debate even a single proposal to address the shortfall in the highway trust fund. Mr. Speaker, we can do better.…”