Cantor/Boehner Flub Key Details - Republican Jobs Proposal Gets Law Wrong, Transportation Dept Says

[kpete]

Republican Jobs Proposal Gets Law Wrong, Transportation Department Says

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While the suggestion sounds like a win-win -- increasing transportation funds without increasing transportation spending -- there is only one problem. Boehner's letter gets the details of the law wrong.

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There is no requirement that states set aside 10 percent of all federal surface transportation funds for purposes of funding Transportation Enhancement projects, a Department of Transportation official confirms. Rather, the law says that they must set aside ten percent of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) funding for those purposes.

It’s not a minor distinction. The FHWA — a sub-agency of the Department of Transportation — was appropriated $927.6 million in fiscal year 2011. The funding for surface transportation during that same period was more than $50 billion.

In other words: the Republican proposal would result in about two percent of surface transportation funding being freed up for states to use on their own infrastructure projects. The Transportation Department official adds, for good measure, that the projects funded by the transportation enhancement program are not, as Boehner suggests, a cornucopia of questionably useful, largely scenic items. “It’s almost exclusively bicycle and pedestrian projects,” the official said.
MORE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/republican-jobs-proposal-transportation_n_956146.html?1315602593.

[SpiralHawk]

1. Sooo typically RepubliCon: FAIL

Tragically, Americans have learned to expect FAIL from the RepubliCons.

[Rex]

2. What? The GOP fails again?

They get something wrong? When do they not?

[valerief]

3. GOP = Got Omnia Phucked-up. nt