Late Thursday afternoon the House passed its version of the five year budget resolution, and just before midnight Thursday the Senate passed its conflicting version. As far as the construction industry is concerned, the major conflict is the difference in approach to transportation infrastructure funding. The Senate version slashes over $72 billion from the amount budgeted by the House for surface transportation infrastructure construction over the next five years, completely negating all the appropriations passed in the economic stimulus package for transport infrastructure construction. The Senate numbers will result in the stimulus appropriations representing mere acceleration of planned spending into the first year of a five year budget, rather than any additional investment in national highway, bridge, waterway, airport, railway and transit construction.
Both bills passed along strict party line votes, without a single Republican vote in favor of the bills in either house of Congress. They will now go to conference committee for reconciliation of the differences, and House Budget Chairman John Spratt said staffers from the House and Senate will begin talks during the upcoming two week recess to speed things along. Let's hope the conferees understand that failure to restore the $72.1 billion investment in transport infrastructure approved in the House budget is essential to avoid completely gutting the economic stimulus of the construction industry.
Both bills passed along strict party line votes, without a single Republican vote in favor of the bills in either house of Congress. They will now go to conference committee for reconciliation of the differences, and House Budget Chairman John Spratt said staffers from the House and Senate will begin talks during the upcoming two week recess to speed things along. Let's hope the conferees understand that failure to restore the $72.1 billion investment in transport infrastructure approved in the House budget is essential to avoid completely gutting the economic stimulus of the construction industry.
