Editorial: Not a good time to cut road funding

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2002 | 8:55 a.m.

In 1998 Congress passed a law stipulating that highway spending must be proportionate to money collected from gasoline taxes. There have been no major complaints until now, as highway construction money has been increasing every year while a healthy cash balance was building. The national tragedy of Sept. 11, however, put the brakes on fuel consumption and President Bush's budget team calculated federal highway spending accordingly. The result, of course, was a highway budget down by about $10 billion. For the states, that meant missing out on about $8.5 billion in federal outlays, with Nevada standing to lose more than $50 million.

Suddenly, states are complaining. Highway spending provides a vital public service and creates about 40,000 jobs for every billion dollars. A bill working its way through Congress now seeks to restore $4.4 billion to the highway budget, money that could come from the $20 billion cash balance. Nevada's lawmakers support this move as well they should. The death of the economic stimulus bill and the prospects of reduced highway construction is a double whammy.