Political Quotes

“Equity for the donor States. ``Donor States'' is a category created by ISTEA I. We never actually heard that term prior to ISTEA I. But generally speaking, what it represented was as a consequence of ISTEA I, a group of States, about 18 to 20 in number. Some were right on the borderline. Those States, when their citizens or visitors in those States went to the gas pump and paid this very significant Federal gas tax, those 19 States got back a very small amount in comparison to other States whose return, as a consequence of ISTEA, was far higher. My State got 79 cents on what we called the apportion dollar that comes back from the highway trust fund; other States had equally. Several had less than my State. And that was basically an unfairness to the citizens of that State, that those moneys that they expended in a Federal tax, and which was represented as to be for the purpose of highways, did not come back in what I believe was a fair formula. So the foundation in this bill was to change that inequity such that that class of donor States received no less than 90.5 percent.”