Editorial: Grow America, Take Two

An outline of the revised Grow America Act shows the Obama administration wants to spend $478.26 billion on surface transportation over six years starting Oct. 1.

This is a larger and lengthier version of last year’s proposal, which was only four years long. The new plan spends 5.47% more per year, on average, than did the old plan.

Normally, this would be cause for celebration, evidence that the president really gets it. Bitter experience tells us, though, that joy is premature.

The Democratic administration fulfilled its responsibility by proposing a budget, but now it goes — as properly it should — to the power-of-purse people in Congress, which is controlled by Republicans. Needless to say, there will be extensive deliberation.

We do not know when there will be any agreement, if an agreement at all.

The fuzziness on funding is a major problem. User taxes on diesel and gasoline are the logical choices for paying for roads. U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and several others agree, but many other legislators and members of the administration preen publicly about their opposition to such a plan.

Tax simplification is another idea, and repatriation could well be a part of that, but it’s no way to fix long-term infrastructure needs. Even with a $4 trillion-a-year total budget, many groups still want more funding.

Stoking the Highway Trust Fund with general-fund money looks good at first, but as soon as a clamor for something else arises, pillaging highway building becomes far too easy.

We dearly hope that a united Republican Congress and a Democratic president with limited time left in office will finally step up and squarely address an issue of prime importance for our nation’s well-being. So far, though, it’s far from clear that will happen.

But it is hard to escape the sick feeling that once again the lust for the political scoring of points will cause Lucy to yank the football from in front of the onrushing Charlie Brown, and trucking will be left stalled in a pothole. We do yearn, however, to be proven wrong.