Congressional Highway Spending

Over the past few months, the Wall Street Journal has published a collection of seemingly unrelated articles concerning Federal highway spending and Congressional earmarks.

However, the two have a common theme- Congressional pork barrel spending and profligacy.

Through a technique known as 'public-private partnership,' highways such as the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road are being spun to private companies, thus relieving the governments of the debt and operation of such roads. As the Journal article points out, PPPs are also being used to construct entirely new roads, rather than have various governmental entities, and their residents, wait for years for Federal grants and aid.

Ironically, given the recent collapse of the Interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis, James Oberstar, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, warned, in a letter to every state, that the states should not enter into PPPs, and that he may even "undo" some existing ones.

Rather than, as Oberstar, ironically, contends, PPPs may not "adequately protect the public interest," the Journal piece points out that what the new funding solutions really do is threaten Oberstar's, and every other House member's ability to use earmarks on the Transportation Committee to curry favor back home. There are 75 (of 435) House members on this committee. That, in itself, tells you how valuable it is for House members to avail themselves of this spending authority.

The Journal article notes that in the last highway bill, which carried a tab of $295B, projects included snowmobile trails, parking lots, bike trails and museums. Not, apparently, sufficient maintenance of Interstate bridges. Nor, as the article points out, solutions to today's really pressing transportation problems- local highways for commuters. Not the construction of more city-to-city connections.

The reality of the situation is that PPPs allow local communities and states to contract for the provision of transportation solutions by going around the Federal government. By allowing a private authority to build, operate and maintain a highway, in exchange for tolls, local authorities assure that the right transportation solutions are provided.

In time, as the Journal points out, these methods of solving transportation problems will lessen the importance of Oberstar's House committee. Either way, drivers will pay for roads, but with PPPs, their local governments make sure that they get what they need.