James Oberstar: “we have heard now in the course of this rather lengthy debate from all the bogeymen with their scare arguments about…”

“we have heard now in the course of this rather lengthy debate from all the bogeymen with their scare arguments about unrestrained spending on transportation projects. The face is that there is restraint. It is written into the highway trust fund language, has been since the beginning in 1956, that this fund is antideficit, that it cannot run a deficit. It has not, and it will not. But in addition to that, there is additional restraint or further restraint from the Office of Management and Budget, which must review and put its stamp of approval on highway funding requests from the Department of Transportation. There is review by the White House. There is review by the Committee on the Budget. There is review by the Committee on Appropriations. And there will continue to be, under this legislation. The second argument about interest, you just heard a discourse a moment ago from our good friend from Michigan about interest. Would any of the members of the Committee on Appropriations, would any Member of this body argue that the Federal Government should not pay interest to purchasers of U.S. Treasury securities? Should we not have paid interest on war bonds for World War II or World War I? Should we not pay interest to those domestic and foreign interests that buy U.S. Treasury notes, that in fact underwrite our deficit? Should we welch to those who buy U.S. Treasury notes, not pay interest to them? No, of course not.…”