Engineering Inc. - January/February 2004 - 16

Jobs, Bush Record To By Deirdre R. Schwiesow H bipartisan cooperation on
The issue of how to pay for ere's one rule of t r a n s p o r t a t i o n
projects and roads also can make for strange thumb when it water projects,
says Corrigan, bedfellows. comes to Presiden- who has worked with Congress
There's no disputing in Con- tial politics: Elec- f o r nearly a quarter
century. gress the need to increase invest- tions featuring an incumbent
are T h e re is no Republican way ment in our nation's infrastruc- always
about the incumbent, to build a bridge, and no ture and, at the end of the
day, says respected political analyst D e m o c r a t i c way to build a
the only way to get to the neces- Chuck Todd, editor-in-chief of The S T E
V E MCCRACKEN s e w a g e - t r e a t m e n t plant. The sary levels is to
increase the fuel Hotline, the National Journal's m e m b e r s are
interested in t a x , says Matthew Jeanneret, daily briefing on politics.
meeting the real needs of their vice president of communica- Though the
media, campaign constituents. t i o n s for the American Road managers
and, indeed, voters B u t when it comes to the a n d Transportation
Builders may want in 2004 to focus on W h i t e House, infrastructure A s
s o c i a t i o n , which represents other issues such as Howard f u n d i
n g has fared better in e n g i n e e r i n g firms and many Dean's
anti-war stance, for exam- recent years under Democratic others involved
in transporta- ple these issues are really just red p r e s i d e n t s
than Republican tion construction. Where the herrings, according to Todd.
ones. challenge has been is finding a This election is not going to be
Under President Bill Clinton, c o n s e n s u s about how you're about
Howard Dean or John highways won its largest funding going to pay for it.
Kerr y [or any other Democratic level ever $218 billion for six M a n y in
the engineering candidate]. It's going to be about y e a r s as part of the
TEA-21 industr y, including ACEC, are George Bush and probably a
reauthorization. pushing for an increase in the yes-no vote for Bush in
terms of But this year, Bush proposed gasoline tax. In 1993, Clinton
foreign affairs, as long as national f a r less than the $375 billion
supported a gas tax increase to security is the big issue, says t h a t
the U.S. Transportation help reduce the federal deficit. Todd, who
believes that major fac- Depar tment says is needed to But Bush, who is
wary of sign- tors will include the human and maintain and slightly
improve ing any tax increase during an economic cost of the war on Iraq, h
i g h w a y s and transit systems election year, opposes the pro- and the
administration's ability to during the next six years. The posed tax
increase. deal with al Qaeda. Bush proposal $247 billion Ma n y Democrats
support a Events at the end of 2003 illus- was just $30 billion more than
g a s - t a x increase. And surpris- trate the volatility of the
situation. w h a t the nation spent in the i n g l y, the person leading
this While the capture of Saddam previous six years. charge GOP Rep. Don
Young Hussein was a boon to the Bush Republicans in Congress came of
Alaska is a conservative who administration and Dean's com- back with
larger proposals: The o f t e n fights tax hikes. Young, ment about the
capture not mak- Se n a t e would spend just over who is chairman of the
House ing the U.S. safer was widely criti- $300 billion on such projects;
Transportation and Infrastruc- cized the code orange threat the House
would spend $375 ture Committee, advocates an alert of December 21 was a
billion. Congress was unable to i n c re a s e in the gas tax by 8.5 good
reminder of how unpre- resolve the matter this year, and cents over the
next six years. dictable the situation is going to is expected to
resurrect the issue It's the Democratic philoso- be, Todd says. in
February 2004. phy that says to prime the pump If the White House was
think- Investing adequately in the with federal spending, to push ing
about politics, they never nation's infrastructure is where the economy
from the bottom would have issued this terror S T E V E N SENNE/AP WIDE
WORLD PHOTOS difficulties sometimes arise with up and put more money in
the alert. All of a sudden, Dean's Republican administrations, says hands
of the middle class and comment became relevant; the ACEC's Hall. We have
to work the poor, Zogby said. Gener- alert allows the debate to take
persistently to demonstrate the ally speaking, it's the Republi- place.
economic benefits and the qual- cans who are for less regulation, Because
of this sense of uncer- i t y of life benefits that infra- lower deficits
and tax-cutting. tainty, the country is still pretty structure investment
brings to But that's not the way it always divided; voting could follow
tradi- plays out. the country, he says. tional party lines because the
situ- 1 6 E N G I N E E R I N G INC. J a n u a r y l February 2004
Engineering Inc. - January/February 2004

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