On Thursday evening in an address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama outlined a $447 billion jobs creation proposal called the American Jobs Act that he plans to send Congress next week. The proposal is a combination of tax cuts, extension of unemployment benefits and investments in school-renovation projects and transportation infrastructure. President Obama said the plan will be paid for and he asked that the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction (aka Super Committee) come up with additional deficit cuts necessary to offset the increased funding.
President Obama said that building a world-class transportation system is part of what made the United States an economic superpower and therefore called for needed investments in transportation. To accomplish that the proposal calls for $50 billion for highway, transit, high-speed rail and aviation projects as follows:
$27 billion for highways
$9 billion for mass transit
$4 billion for high-speed rail corridors
$2 billion for Amtrak
$5 billion for TIGER and TIFIA grant/loan assistance
$2 billion for airport improvement grants
$1 billion for FAA NextGen air traffic control
While the details of the legislation have not yet been released, the White House released a fact sheetand DOT officials briefed AGC and other stakeholder groups on the proposal. The following are some of the details:
- Highway funds will be distributed to states using the same formulas that were used in the American Recovery and reinvestment Act (ARRA).
- Transit funds will be distributed through the existing formulas and will not include new starts funding.
- While the intent is to start projects and therefore create jobs as quickly as possible, the deadlines for obligating funds are not likely to be as tight as the ARRA deadlines.
- Reporting and accountability requirements will be improved from the ARRA projects reducing redundancies and simplifying the process.