Bill Archer: “I have listened to all of the rhetoric today. I must say the gentleman from Florida now says he wants this money to go…”

“I have listened to all of the rhetoric today. I must say the gentleman from Florida now says he wants this money to go into the trust fund. I have wanted all gasoline taxes to go into the trust fund and to build highways and bridges so that those who pay the tax will benefit by being able to use the infrastructure paid for by those taxes. Unfortunately, that was not permitted in 1993. For the first time the compact with the American vehicle users on the highways was abrogated, the compact that existed all the way back to Eisenhower's presidency of this country. I would hope that if this tax is permitted to continue after January 1, that the gentleman from Florida will join with me to assure that it does go into the highway trust fund where it belongs as a legitimate user fee. Unfortunately, the gentleman will be retiring and will not be here at that time. There is so much misinformation that has been presented about this legislation. Yes, it is a temporary repeal. Yes, hopefully this will be a temporary spike in the price of gasoline so that we can give some degree of help to working Americans to let them keep more of their weekly paycheck. And if the price of gasoline is down overall at the end of this year, we will have done our job.”