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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said a vote to begin debate on a massive highway bill he is pitching is "an important first step" toward solving a transportation funding shortfall that has bedeviled Congress for a decade.  "There are lot of tired cliches about not giving up after an initial set back," McConnell said, referencing a failed test vote on Tuesday that placed the Senate's ability to pass a long-term highway bill in doubt.  "I won't subject our colleagues to any of those this morning, but I will say that last night's vote represents an important first step toward...

Here Comes Congress' Next Big Economic Crisis, And It Could Be Even Worse Than The Fiscal Cliff Brett LoGiuratoMay 15, 2014, 10:51 AM We survived the fiscal cliff and the government shutdown. But there's another big battle brewing this summer between Congress and the Obama administration with dire economic consequences that could cost the country hundreds of thousands of jobs. And even though politicians on both sides of the aisle agree this disaster is "completely avoidable," all signs indicate we're on a collision course with crisis. On Wednesday, President Barack Obama gave his first formal warning about this impending self-inflicted...

The Department of Transportation (DOT) released a report this past Tuesday showing that the Highway Trust Fund will run out of money by this August. The fund is the primary way by which the government maintains our roads and highways. While the fund received a $9.7 billion dollar infusion from the General Fund just after the start of this fiscal year, the fund’s outlays continue to outpace receipts and it will soon be in the red. To be sure, part of the reason for this is that transportation infrastructure costs are on the rise. As the highways built in the...

On the road in a tour bus this week, the U.S. transportation secretary is spreading some bad news: The government’s Highway Trust Fund is nearly broke. If allowed to run dry, that could set back or shut down projects across the country, force widespread layoffs of construction workers and delay needed repairs and improvements. Anthony Foxx kicked off an eight-state bus trip in Ohio to whip up public support for congressional approval of legislation to keep federal transportation aid flowing to states for another four years, and possibly longer. But Congress will have to act fast. The trust fund—the source...

Alcohol occupies a peculiar position in the culture of the United States. Like so much else besides, it is subject to the ongoing brawl between puritanism and libertarianism, two philosophies that have long jockeyed for dominance here. Americans have made many contributions to the bar — including the perfection and popularization of the cocktail. But puritanism has survived, enjoying a rich history of its own. Benjamin Rush’s inquiries into alcoholism spawned a variety of anti-alcohol movements at the outset of the new republic; in the 1850s, “temperance” overlapped uncomfortably with the Know Nothing movement’s distaste for secular principles; and...

Out-of-touch Earmarks & Elites by: Lance Nation, September 25, 2008 Those congressmen who defend earmarks as necessary may be grateful that few in the Washington press corps look too carefully at them. “I realized that there was no merit in this system,” U. S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., said at the weekly meeting of Washington, D. C. area bloggers at the Heritage Foundation. “Jim Oberstar who represents the 8th District in Minnesota got as much money for transportation earmarked for that district as the other seven of us combined.” “Was that because the 8th district was growing faster and had...

Paraphrasing, here's how the exchange went between congressional Democrats and the president over lifting their respective bans on offshore drilling: President Bush: "We need to lift the bans. Americans are being hammered by high gasoline prices." Democrats in Congress: "You go first." President Bush: "OK, I hereby lift the presidential ban on offshore drilling. Your turn." Democrats in Congress: "Forget that. Gasoline prices are too low. Let's raise the gasoline tax 56 percent instead." Why would they propose that? Because next year, the Federal Highway Trust Fund, where gasoline-tax receipts collect, will be at least $3 billion in the red;...

  For Immediate ReleaseJuly 30, 2005 President's Radio Address      Audio      THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This year Congress and I have addressed many key priorities of the American people and we're making great progress. At the start of the year, I urged Congress to ease the burden of junk lawsuits on American workers, businesses and families, so Congress passed, and I signed, bipartisan class-action reform. We called for restoring integrity to the bankruptcy process, so Congress passed, and I signed common-sense reform of our nation's bankruptcy laws. I requested vital funds for our men and women in uniform, so Congress...

AUSTIN -- As boycotting Democratic state senators chalked up their first day of fines Thursday because of their absence, the leader of Texas' congressional Democrats said a Republican redistricting plan could cost the state federal highway dollars. The funding would be jeopardized if Republican leaders succeed in replacing senior Democratic members of Congress from Texas with inexperienced freshmen, U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, told a transportation summit in his home city. "If (House) Majority Leader (Tom) DeLay has his way, eight senior Democrats with 124 years of seniority would be replaced by eight freshmen Republicans who will barely know where...