Bush shortchanges infrastructure

President Bush -- who ran for office on a platform that included smaller government -- secured a dubious place in history as the first president to submit to Congress a $3 trillion budget. Bush again proposed increasing funds for defense and homeland security, while the rest of the budget for FY '09 keeps all other departments to less than a one percent growth, with many receiving a budget reduction. The Department of Transportation took a multi-billion hit as the budget was reduced 3.1 percent, a $2.13 billion cut, to $68.2 billion. The budget provides the Federal Highway Administration $39.4 billion, almost $2 billion less than the funding level of $41.2 billion prescribed for 2009 by SAFETEA-LU. According to NSSGA, the reason given for the cut is that last year Congress overspent the amount agreed to in SAFETEA-LU when it allocated $1 billion for bridge repairs in the final spending bill of FY '08. The administration also proposes a $3.15 billion rescission of state highway contract authority and additional funds from earmarks in prior transportation authorization bills. Reasoning that if those projects have not secured at least 10 percent of the total needed for completion over the past 10 years, the money would be better spent elsewhere. Of that total, $175 million is reallocated to the administration's new congestion relief initiative. Another $8.593 billion rescission in contract authority is mandated on Sept. 30, 2009, by SAFETEA-LU (this was done to keep the total amount to the $256 billion agreed to by Congress) unless the highway bill is reauthorized first. Your comment?