Not Busting the Trust

Most experts agree that the U.S.'s transportation network is gravely out of balance--too much emphasis on highways and too little on railroads and mass transit. The main reason can be summed up in four words: the Highway Trust Fund. Created by Congress in 1956 to build the 42,500-mile-long interstate highway system, now 85% complete, the fund has proved to be a financially irresistible force. It automatically receives some $4 billion every year from a federal gasoline tax of 40 per gal., plus another $2 billion from levies on diesel fuel, lubricating oil and other motoring necessities. By contrast, mass transit has always had to scramble for federal funds, gaining only in 1973 a secondary claim on money in the highway fund.

Last week President Ford sent Congress a message that seemed to ask for legislation to correct the situation. He focused on the federal gasoline tax, proposing to siphon 30 of the 40 per gal. away from the highway fund. Two of those pennies would become part of the Government's general revenues and could theoretically be used to aid mass transit, or indeed to bankroll any federal program. The remaining cent would go to the states, which in theory could also use the money for any purpose.

As if this apparent trust-fund busting were not enough to sway Congress, Ford explained that his proposal would also limit the Federal Government's role in road building to areas of clear national concern like the interstate system. General highway building, he said, is a "classic example of a federal program that has expanded over the years into areas of state and local responsibility." The suggestion was that states and cities would gain new control over every aspect of road building, from financing to construction.

Yet the President's plan is far less innovative than it appears to be. In fact, it is a collection of politically attractive revisions that change almost nothing. The highway fund would still receive $3 billion a year from the remaining 10-per-gal. tax and the other levies --enough to continue to finance road building at close to its present massive scale. At the same time, much of the new money channeled to the states would still be used for highways; most states have provisions written into their constitutions that require all funds raised by gasoline taxes to be spent on roads. Indeed, Ford's proposal would only free the states from complying with federal rules that force highway builders to design their roads to be safe and not harmful to the environment.

Committed Money. What about the 20-per-gal. tax that would swell the Government's general revenues? That money would not be available for mass transit, welfare, defense or anything else: it has in effect already been committed to highways. The Department of Transportation's budget projections through 1981 call for federal spending of about $2.2 billion a year--roughly the same amount provided by the trust fund today --to maintain rural, suburban and urban roads and make them safer. Moreover, under Ford's plan, mass-transit funds that used to come from the highway trust would now come out of general revenues, where they would be at a competitive disadvantage with roads. "Sure, we need more mass transit," sums up a transportation expert in Washington. "But we also need the highways, and there is not enough money for both." Whether Congress will agree remains to be seen.

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