Nation
hursdayApii
House highway bill threatens balanced budget California neighbort^—
WASHINGTON (AP) — The anced budget in three decades, Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa., a
“I think it’s doubtful that well
House neared passage Wednesday
of a $217 billion spending bill that
would shower states with highway
projects but raise questions about
whether the commitment to a bal
anced budget has given way to old-
fashioned pork barrel politics.
The six-year spending bill, ex
pected to pass overwhelmingly
Wednesday evening, was touted as
salvation to the nation’s crumbling
bridges, overtaxed mass transit sys
tems and dangerous highways.
It would create hundreds of
thousands of high-paying
construction jobs.
“This is a bill that is good for all
America for all time,” said Rep.
James Oberstar of Minnesota, rank
ing Democrat on the Transporta
tion Committee.
But it also exceeds the sum of
last year’s balanced budget deal set
aside for transportation projects by
$26 billion, prompting concern
that, on the verge of the first bal-
Congress was already slipping back
into its old spending ways.
“I simply do not feel we have the
money,” said Rep. David Obey of
Wisconsin, ranking Democrat on
the Appropriations Committee. He
said it was “spectacularly irrespon
sible” that neither the Senate,
which approved a $214 billion bill
a month ago, nor the House had
specified how it would pay for the
extra spending.
The White House has expressed
concern about the spending level.
“We urge both the House and the
Senate to pause and take a deep
breath and consider how we’re go
ing to pay for this,” said Office of
Management and Budget Director
Franklin Raines.
The House bill calls for spending
some $180 billion on highway build
ing, $36 billion on mass transit and
$1.6 billion on the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration.
Transportation Committee
s
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longtime champion of highway
spending, insisted that all the pro
ject money would come from the
tax Americans pay at the gas pump.
“The cold hard fact remains we are
simply spending the revenue coming
in. This is honesty in budgeting.”
The problem is that the highway
trust fund is calculated as part of the
general budget, reducing the
deficit. Taking it off-budget, as the
Shuster bill calls for, would require
finding additional savings to keep
the budget in balance.
Fiscal conservatives have also
criticized Shuster for setting aside 5
percent of the money, more than $9
billion, for 1,463 projects that indi
vidual lawmakers requested for
their districts.
Republicans were given 55 per
cent of the money and Democrats
45 percent, and the complaint,
strongly denied by Shuster, was that
pork barrel politicking decided who
got what.
over 1,400 projects are deserving of
federal attention,” said Rep. Porter
Goss, R-Fla., noting that the last sbe-
year program enacted in 1991 had
only 539 such projects.
The proposed projects include a
$100,000 rail-highway feasibility
study in Muncie, Ind., a $4.5 million
pedestrian and bicycle path in New
London, Conn., and a $97 million
widening of the 1-40 cross-town
bridge in Oklahoma City.
The House was expected to de
feat an amendment proposed by
Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to
eliminate all the special project
money and another by Budget Com
mittee Chairman John Kasich, R-
Ohio, a strong critic of the bill’s
spending levels, to gradually turn the
federal trust fund over to the states.
The old highway act expired last
fall and a six-month extension ap
proved to keep money flowing
while Congress worked on the new
bill runs out May 1.
FREMONT, Calif. (AP) — Mo
han Sharma is baffied by a series of
bombings that have targeted the
quiet and scenic neighborhood
where he is building his $2 million
dream house.
There have been three bomb
ings since Sunday and two more
explosives were found before they
went off.
No one has been hurt, but the
attacks have made residents
scared and angry in this town 30
miles southeast of San Francisco.
“I don’t know why they'd target
anyone here,” Sharma said Wednes
day. “Some lunatic is just disrupting
the peace of this community.”
Fremont’s tranquility was shat
tered early Sunday morning when a
firebomb exploded at the house of
Police Chief Craig Steckler.
The blast ripped a 10-foot-wide
hole in the roofands
porch on fire.
That afternoon, hi
sor as police chief, (
Bob Wassennan, found
explosive in a brown pt
the walkway leading
door. It was safelydisa
Sunday evening,
bombs stuffed intoai
ripped through a newly 3
A 17-year-old girl \vtI
the time and escapedir l
On Monday even, |
acting on a phone tip ft I
bomb hidden in crawls!
house under construes I
The bomb squad dl
nated it.
The last bomb w. i
backpack left hangirJ
town's water tower.Thr l
not damaged.
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r he time ha:
come to be
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