Wisconsin has received less than its fair share of federal highway money each year since the Federal Highway System was created in the mid-1950s. Year after year our drivers would pay their federal gasoline taxes but only get 90 or 80 or 70 cents or less back from Washington to build and maintain our roads. It's simple equity. It's fairness, and nothing more than fairness. But now, you said there has been a lot of misinformation about the new highway program.
People are right to raise the point that the new highway program is expensive.
It will cost a lot of money. The federal gas tax is earmarked specifically for the Federal Highway Trust Fund to pay for highway construction and maintenance. Recent federal budgets have sought to raid the Highway Trust Fund to pay for other unrelated programs. All those of us on the Transportation Committee did was to force a re-negotiation which returns federal gasoline taxes to their intended use. It's simply not fair to divert these user fees to other purposes.