Transportation Department out of Road Funds

According to Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, by the end of September, the highway trust fund should run out of funds. This, in turn, will delay payments normally made to states for construction and transportation projects. This fund is a federally backed account utilized to help remunerate states for bridge and highway projects. The total projected shortfall of money is around $8.3 billion dollars. Such an enormous shortfall will indeed lead to a temporary reduction and fairly short delays in the payment of states that the federal government promised to assist financially as they undertook infrastructure projects.

The Transportation Secretary, Mary Peters, first off blames high gasoline prices for the transportation department funding shortage. Since higher gas prices have been in effect, Americans are driving a lot less than they used to. So, less gasoline and diesel fuel purchases add up to a decline in the amount of gas tax acquired to fund the trust. Amazingly, from November through June in 2008, the U.S. population ended up driving 50 billion miles less than they did within that same timeframe last year. And adding fuel to the fire, according to Peters, are federal lawmakers who like to bloat the highway spending budget each year with earmarks that are headed to their state. In fact, the most recent highway spending bill was fattened with $24 billion dollars worth of earmarks. This doesn’t bode well for Class A truck driving jobs or CDL truck driving jobs at all.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials executive director, John Horsley, foresees terrible repercussions for all of the states with such stifling funding delays in effect. That is because it will no doubt have a domino effect on them. For example, the driving public could face potential problems with road quality and safety, while thousands and thousands of construction workers will find themselves out of a job. This is not good for CDL truck driving jobs or Class A truck driving jobs at all. Since many U.S. states are already facing financial hardship, this funding pinch will just add to it, delaying or stopping transportation projects while leaving suppliers and contractors with a bunch of IOUs instead of their much needed cash used to pay workers with.