Federal Funding

House Speaker John Boehner won’t take no for an answer. As the House struggles to consider and vote on nearly 600 amendments to the FY2011 budget – in a process the GOP is heralding as unprecedented democracy and the Democrats are calling chaos – the prospects for consensus on the continuing resolution is becoming increasingly narrow.

We reported yesterday that the president's six-year transportation plan proposes simplifying federal policy by eliminating 55 highway programs and rolling them all into five umbrella programs: the National Highway Program, Highway Safety Improvement, Livable Communities, Federal Allocation, and Research, Technology, and Education.

The president’s six-year transportation plan [PDF], included as part of the administration’s FY2012 budget proposal, weighs in at a hefty $556 billion and lays out several policy reforms that, if enacted, could help the nation transition to a more multi-modal, less oil-dependent transportation system.

The White House has released a fact sheet on the transportation provisions in the President's budget. [PDF]

The White House hasn’t released its FY2012 budget request yet. What we know so far is that it’s a $3.7 trillion budget that would reduce the deficit from $1.6 trillion projected for 2011 to $1.2 trillion next year. President Obama “trims or terminates” more than 200 federal programs, according to the Washington Post, but has big plans for transportation: his budget envisions a $556 billion transportation bill. The Hill reports that the proposal includes "$50 billion in up-front investment that 'creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in the short-term.'"

On Valentine’s Day, President Obama’s heart-shaped box of chocolates to Congress will come in the form of his budget request for 2012. It will include the president’s proposal for a six-year transportation reauthorization.

The House Appropriations Committee voted last night to move ahead with deep spending cuts, totaling $32 billion, to the remainder of the FY2011 budget. It’s still not the $100 billion the GOP wanted to cut, and some committee Republicans voted no, saying the cuts were still too small.

Hasn’t it felt lately like Capitol Hill is in some kind of bizarre vortex?

The House Appropriations Committee yesterday gave a glimpse into their plans to cut spending as promised. Chair Hal Rogers (R-KY) set spending ceilings each of the 12 Appropriations subcommittees, cutting the budget for the Transportation and HUD Subcommittee by 17 percent, or $11.6 billion.