Putting together a long-term highway bill is not going to be a walk in the park. The way Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx sees it, the journey is going to feel more like a rough stroll on the golf course.
Foxx used his link analogy during a question-and-answer session at an American Public Transportation Association meeting.
“I tell my team that I fully expect the next several months to be, to use a golf term, playing in the rough a lot,” he said. “But part of what we want to see happening, not just in the DOT four corners, but on Capitol Hill, is moving the discussion from whether we’re going to get to yes to how we’re going to get to yes.”
President Barack Obama certainly got the industry talking when he released details of a four-year, $302 billion highway bill a couple of weeks ago. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) followed suit with a House version that, like the Obama plan, relies on tax reform to generate money for a multiyear transportation-funding package. Foxx has been encouraged with the action in Congress and at the White House.
“The same day that we unveiled the president’s proposal in St. Paul, Minn., Dave Camp, the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, also unveiled a corporate tax-reform proposal,” said Foxx. “And so it appears that there’s at least bipartisan interest in that mechanism.”
