House Concurrent Resolution 34 is based on a blueprint drafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin. The House Budget Committee approved the resolution last week. (see April 8 AASHTO Journal story) It passed the House today on a vote of 235-193.

If the resolution is also adopted by the Senate, Highway Trust Fund contract authority would average $38 billion per year over FY 2012-14, then dip down in FY 2015, Transportation Weekly reported. The Congressional Budget Office baseline for Highway Trust Fund contract authority is roughly $53 billion for FY 2012, meaning the House budget resolution would reduce contract authority 28%.

Highway Trust Fund contract authority funds programs of the Federal Highway Administration ($43 billion CBO baseline for FY 2012), Federal Transit Administration ($8.4 billion), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ($712 million), and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ($552 million).

During a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Thursday at which five state transportation department leaders testified (see related story), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, said without new revenue, federal highway funding will drop from the current $43 billion baseline level to about $28 billion annually.

House Democrats Offer Budget Plan to Grow Transportation Funding

House Democrats released an alternative budget resolution this week that was debated today and rejected by a vote of 259-166.

The House Democratic Caucus budget proposal sought to bring the economy into "primary balance" (which doesn't count interest payments on the debt) by 2018, three years later than the Republican plan. It would have reduced the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years and promised to end tax breaks for oil companies, Streetsblog Capitol Hill reported.

Like President Barack Obama's original budget proposal and the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's plan, the Democrats' proposal would have moved transportation spending over to the "mandatory" column.

The Democratic alternative would have allowed for $93 billion in new budget authority for transportation next year, growing to $101 billion in 2021.

Obama Releases Deficit-Reduction Plan

Obama answered the House Republicans' budget plan Wednesday. During a speech at George Washington University, the president proposed cutting the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 years and called for bipartisan talks to reach a debt deal by the end of June.

The president criticized the FY 2012 House budget resolution while offering his most substantive debt-reduction proposal to date, Roll Call reported. The president acknowledged spending cuts must be made but he also called for shared sacrifice and for requiring the wealthy to pay more in taxes.

The White House's deficit-reduction plan, which builds on the proposal of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, includes $2 trillion in spending cuts, $1 trillion from shrinking tax deductions, and $1 trillion from reduced interest payments.

Obama proposed a debt trigger that would require the level of debt as a percentage of the economy to start dropping by 2014 or else additional spending cuts and cuts to tax deductions would automatically take place.

Bipartisan negotiations led by Vice President Joseph Biden on a deficit solution will begin in early May and should finish by the end of June, Obama said.

A budget resolution has yet to be introduced in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Thursday he is happy to consider spending cuts and other ways to control the nation's debt and isn't going to require that tax increases be part of a budget deal with House Republicans, Roll Call reported.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois and a member of the "Gang of Six" senators trying to hash out a $4 trillion bipartisan deficit-cutting package, said the group still has several difficult issues to tackle.