Kay Bailey Hutchison: “Mr. President, if the highway trust fund were going to be affected at all, I could not be a sponsor of this amendment.…”

“Mr. President, if the highway trust fund were going to be affected at all, I could not be a sponsor of this amendment. But the highway trust fund is specifically held harmless. We passed a budget resolution in this Senate that said we would give $150 billion in tax relief for this Nation over the next 5 years. We are talking about roughly $12 billion of that money that we have already allocated for tax relief for hard-working Americans. That is what will keep the highway trust fund totally whole. The highway trust fund will not lose one penny. There will be no safety crisis. There will be no stoppage of money going into the flow for the highway trust fund. In fact, this is a tax relief measure because we have had a crisis that was not expected. We have had a crisis with families going on vacation, consumers, people who have to drive to work every day. What about the independent trucker who is now paying $150 to $200 a tank more than they have ever paid before because the price of gas is so high? We must give this temporary relief, as we take longer term measures to try to take our dependence on foreign oil down to a level that is acceptable. Until we do that, we need to give this immediate relief. We have it in the budget to do it. We will not touch the highway trust fund.”