Who doesn’t want a piece of
the infrastructure pie?
WHATEVER YOUR VIEWS ON THE BEST WAY TO STIMULATE
the U.S. economy, you’d be hard-pressed to find an economist who
would disagree that job creation and improvements to and expansion
of our nation’s transportation infrastructure would be good things.
And the good news is they go hand in hand.
It’s a point that Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, and previously head of the American
Widely considered one of the most influential
power brokers in our nation’s capital, Donohue has
been banging this drum for over two decades. It’s
hard to argue with his point.
Why, then, is it so hard to get the federal government to focus on what may be the single best step it
can take to improve our economy?
Because the mechanism for making that happen comes in the form
of the congressional reauthorization bill for surface transportation
programs, such as roads, bridges, railroads, and public transit.
Unfortunately, in addition to being the means to further investment in
infrastructure, it is also perhaps the best single example of congressional earmarking and pork barrel spending you’ll ever come across.
A just-released report from MapLight, a nonprofit, nonpartisan
research organization that tracks money’s influence on politics,
reveals the vast amounts of special interest money being thrown at
members of Congress from organizations and businesses with a vested interest in the final form of the reauthorization bill.
These groups run the gamut from construction interests to labor
unions, environmental groups, railroads, trucking groups, public
transit supporters, and even bicycling advocacy groups.
Here’s a quick rundown of contributions from some of these interests, as reported by MapLight:
▪ Interest groups connected to the construction
industry that have taken a position on the bill
gave a total of $21,231,210 to members of the
U.S. House of Representatives. Members of the
U.S. Senate received a total of $25,068,579 from
these same interest groups.
▪ Building trade unions gave $7,854,079 to
members of the House and $3,555,755 to members of the Senate.
▪ Transportation unions that have taken a position on the bill gave a total of $2,048,220 to
members of the House and
$1,313,000 to members of the
Senate.
▪ Interest groups representing
the trucking industry gave
$1,882,036 to members of the
House. Members of the Senate
received $2,392,171.
▪ Interest groups representing
railroads gave $3,765,664 to
members of the House.
Members of the Senate received
$4,158,467.
Everyone, it seems, wants a
piece of the surface transportation reauthorization pie. And clearly, it’s a meat pie. Pork pie, to
be precise.
Editor’s note: As we went to press, the current
authorization bill was set to expire on March 31, a
date that has become the unofficial deadline for a
new reauthorization bill. The Senate is expected to
move forward with a two-year reauthorization bill,
while the House will either move on its own five-year reauthorization bill or abandon that plan and
join with the Senate on a two-year program.
