Norman Mineta: “I rise in very, very strong opposition to the Orton amendment. I think there are two things that bother me about the…”

“I rise in very, very strong opposition to the Orton amendment. I think there are two things that bother me about the discussion that is going on. One is that there is no recognition whatsoever about the user taxes that are being generated right now through a gasoline or a ticket tax, and they are treating those dollars the same as general tax revenues. There is no tax for a V-22, a C-17, or for defense in general, but there is a dedicated fund, a highway trust fund or an aviation fund that has revenue coming either from a ticket tax on passengers on airlines or on the gasoline and diesel tax from the users of the highway system. There is another thing that is starting to bother me, and that is that there is no distinction between a dollar spent for operations and a dollar spent on capital items. A dollar spent on capital items is an investment that brings back or generates economic growth and other kinds of activities. Those who have advocated a line-item veto have argued that if we are going to get serious about deficit spending, we have to have this tool--the line-item veto--to bring spending down.”