Political Quotes

“this is a simple proposal to obtain numbers about a Federal program as regards the respective States. As a member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works for the last 22 years, I served as chairman, at one point, and handled a number of highway bills, as we call them, transportation bills, and have been involved with negotiations with the House in these matters. One of the subjects that comes forward continuously is the payments by respective State residents, or persons passing through a State, into the highway trust fund. This was established in 1956 by President Eisenhower, under his administration, on the recommendation of a commission headed by General Clay, with the previous Speaker, Mr. Wright of Texas, as one of the persons animating the effort in the Congress. There was a source of funding for the Interstate and Defense Highway Program. Indeed, there was, and we have very successfully finished that program and we continue to fund transportation projects across the Nation with those revenues as they come in. Now, in 1986 we established the airport and airway trust fund. It is a ticket tax and other taxes. It brings considerable revenue, as anyone who has recently ridden on the Washington-New York shuttle can attest. In fiscal year 1998, we estimate that $4.5 billion was collected in ticket taxes. However, we have no State-by-State analysis of the dollar contributions.…”