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Budget Debate Begins with Proposal to Cut Transport Programs

House Budget Committee Chairman Hal Rogers kicked off this year's budget process with a plan that includes a 17 percent cut for highway and housing programs. The Kentucky Republican said that the $74 billion in overall cuts his committee envisions constitute a responsible and prudent level of funding for the rest of the fiscal year.

"I am instructing each of the 12 appropriations subcommittees to produce specific, substantive and comprehensive spending cuts," Rogers said in a statement. "We are going to go line by line to weed out and eliminate unnecessary, wasteful or excessive spending."

It is not yet clear, however, how the cuts would affect transportation.

The budget authority cuts Rogers is proposing could not touch the federal highway program or truck safety programs because they are not in the discretionary budget, said Jack Basso, chief operating officer of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Basso said AASHTO is still trying to sort out exactly how the Budget Committee plan will work, but said it is possible that the programs most likely to be affected would be transit new starts and high-speed rail. The highway program may or may not be affected, he said.

In any event, Congress has a long way to go before a decision is made. "If the budget emerges from the House around those numbers, you still have the Senate and the administration to contend with," he said. "This is the beginning, not the end."

The government is operating on a continuing resolution that expires March 4.

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