Letter to the Wisconsin Congressional Delegation
from Mike Ryan, Chairman, Wisconsin LECET Board of Trustees

I am writing this morning to address a number of issues with you that I feel will provide increased funding for badly needed transportation projects, will inject some honesty into transportation budgeting and balanced budget deliberations, will supply needed impetus to economic development efforts and will provide thousands of well paying jobs for Wisconsin workers.

For many years, user fees that are supposed to be dedicated solely for building and maintaining our nation's transportation infrastructure have instead been used in an accounting slight-of-hand to reduce the budget deficit. That is why the Wisconsin Laborers District Council and our labor-management fund, the Wisconsin Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust (Wisconsin LECET) support the Truth in Budgeting Act (HR 4). This legislation will take the Highway, Airport & Airway, Inland Waterways and Harbor maintenance trust funds out of the unified federal budget. Currently, these trust funds have more than $30 billion in surpluses that should be used for the intended purpose of maintaining and improving our nation's transportation infrastructure.

In addition to the trust fund issue, four years ago Congress increased the federal gas tax by 4.3 cents-per-gallon and directed all the additional revenue to the General Treasury. This money should clearly be used to support transportation improvements. This latest increase in the gas tax is the only portion of the federal gasoline tax not to be used for improvements to our nation's transportation infrastructure. With funding so urgently needed for transportation initiatives, the 4.3 cents increase should go to the Highway Trust Fund. This transfer is a matter of fairness.

If we take the transportation trust funds out of the unified federal budget and transfer the
4.3 cents-per-gallon gas tax increase to the transportation trust funds, we will have much more flexibility to increase badly needed transportation funding when Congress reauthorizes the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) later this year.

I hope you will agree that honesty in budgeting, safety for transportation consumers and good jobs for Wisconsin workers take precedence as you debate and vote on these issues.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you for your consideration.