Copyright 1999 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune
The Tampa Tribune
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March 3, 1999, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NATION/WORLD, Pg. 22
LENGTH: 446 words
HEADLINE:
Bud Shuster's words of wisdom;
BODY:
U.S. Rep. Bud Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, made a field trip to Tampa the other day to see
our port, airport and highways.
There is general agreement here on the
importance of air and sea transport, but the community is divided on
ground transportation - whether to continue to depend entirely on roads or to
augment them with a commuter rail line that would largely
follow existing freight rail rights of way.
Shuster's
advice: If you can, build rail. "When you have right of way, you're halfway
there," he told us. "Light rail seems to be pretty darn efficient."
This from a solidly conservative congressman representing a Pennsylvania
mountain district that has been Republican since 1860.
Shuster
helped deregulate trucking and has consistently pushed to give local governments
more say in how federal transportation money is spent. Now up to half the
federal gasoline tax revenue in any one category can be diverted to
another, which means some highway money can be spent on transit and vice
versa. This flexibility gives state and local governments more power, which puts
them under more pressure to make intelligent choices.
The new
transportation law is sending Florida about $ 440 million more per year, a sum
that partially corrects the old funding formula that for years
shortchanged fast-growing states.
Shuster argues convincingly that all
federal gasoline taxes should be spent on transportation and that all
airline ticket taxes should be spent on aviation improvements. If the money
isn't needed, reduce the tax rate. But the money is desperately needed, so
Congress should invest it to improve the national economy and public
safety.
He dismisses as ill-informed the often repeated criticism that
Congress loaded the latest highway bill with pork. High-priority
congressional projects account for 5 percent of the spending, and all
those projects required the written support of the state departments of
transportation. Even if all these special projects are unnecessary fat,
which they aren't, the remaining 95 percent of the money is going back to
state and local governments.
Shuster, a veteran of the endless tug of
war over limited revenues, conceded, "These decisions are not made by
angels up in heaven."
They are made largely by men and women here at the
local level, and the better informed they are, the more wisely they will
invest taxpayers' money. It should interest them that the neutral advice
from conservative Bud Shuster, who is neither campaigning here nor speculating
in local real estate, is to seriously consider rail.
NOTES: EDITORIALS
LOAD-DATE:
March 4, 1999 
