DALLAS – The two Democratic contenders for the White House say they would boost federal infrastructure spending if elected while three of the four Republican presidential candidates favor lowering the federal gasoline tax to give states more authority over transportation funding, according to a new analysis by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, have proposed large, multiyear infrastructure programs, but Donald Trump is the only Republican candidate emphasizing the need to rebuild roads and modernize airports, ARTBA said.
The report includes the candidates' legislative record, how they dealt with highway and transit issues while in office, and their public pronouncements on transportation funding, said ARBTA spokeswoman Eileen Houlihan.
"This is just an information-gathering report. We don't endorse candidates," Houlihan said. "We may update it depending on the results in the Florida and Ohio primaries on Tuesday, and we'll certainly update it after the nominating conventions this summer."
Sanders and Clinton stress the job-creating potential of major infrastructure programs in their highway and transit funding proposals included in the ARTBA analysis.
Sanders said the Grow America Act (S. 268), a five-year, $1 trillion infrastructure renewal proposal he introduced in January 2015, would support 13 million jobs.
"Our nation's infrastructure is collapsing, and the American people know it," he said. "Every day, they drive on roads with unforgiving potholes and over bridges that are in disrepair."
The infrastructure modernization effort would be financed "by closing loopholes that allow profitable corporations to avoid paying taxes by, among other things, shifting their profits to the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens," Sanders said.
Sanders has opposed devolution efforts in the Senate to reduce the gasoline tax and minimize the federal role in transportation funding, but did not cast a vote when the Senate passed the five-year, $305 billion Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act in late 2015.
Clinton proposed an infrastructure jobs plan in November that would add $250 billion to the FAST Act funding, create a $25 billion national infrastructure bank, and revive the Build America Bonds program.
The five-year plan would be financed through business tax reform, she said.
Clinton on Thursday criticized Florida Gov. Rick Scott's 2011 decision to cancel a high-speed rail project that would have been funded through President Obama's stimulus program.
"It makes absolutely no sense, especially when we know we're going to have to do high-speed rail if we're going to have a competitive economy in the 21st century," she said at a campaign rally in Tampa.
Republican candidates Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have consistently supported devolution proposals in the Senate and both voted against passage of the FAST Act.
Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich sponsored several proposals to reduce the federal gasoline tax to a few pennies per gallon while a congressman from 1983 to 2001, and maintained that position in an October 2015 position paper.
"Consumers and job creators likely would see lower prices at the pump, states likely would have more resources and freedom to meet their own needs, and the only loser would be the federal transportation bureaucracy," he said. "So be it."
New York businessman Donald Trump, the Republican candidate with the most delegates at this point, said infrastructure modernization would be one of his top priorities as president.
"Before we build bridges to Mars, let's make sure the bridges over the Mississippi River aren't going to fall down," he said in his 2015 book, Crippled America. "There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that stimulates the economy better than construction."
