T4America Blog

News, press releases and other updates

Posts Tagged "budget"

Strides towards Building Back Better the US transportation program

a full bus of commuters

The revised version of the Build Back Better Act preserves $40 billion in important additions that will advance racial equity, address climate change by lowering emissions, and foster community-oriented economic recovery. T4America is encouraged to see these inclusions, but they’ll be a drop in the bucket compared to the much larger infrastructure deal, which doubles down on our dangerous, disconnected, high speed vehicle-dominated status quo.

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Why the House and Senate owe transit $10 billion

he Senate’s infrastructure deal came up short on transit in two key ways. The House can address these concerns by restoring the funds cut from transit. More on this in our fact sheet.

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Three ways reconciliation can restore funds taken from transit and equity

Nancy Pelosi speaking into a microphone with Chuck Schumer on her right, AFGE behind her

With the bipartisan infrastructure deal approved by the Senate, opportunities to shift long-term transportation policy will shift to the House and to program implementation. The opportunity in the House is through targeted investments via the budget reconciliation bill that will accompany the House infrastructure bill vote.

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Eight things to know about the president’s budget and infrastructure plan

After promising the release of an infrastructure plan since the early days of his administration over a year ago, President Trump finally released his long-awaited plan for infrastructure investment. Since he did it on the same day he released his budget request for the next fiscal year, it’s worth considering them together and asking: what do these proposals mean for infrastructure?

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“One cannot claim to invest in infrastructure while also cutting it”—T4 statement on President Trump’s infrastructure proposal and 2019 budget request

press release

Upon the release of the president’s infrastructure plan and his budget request for FY19, T4America Director Kevin F. Thompson offered the following statement:

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House making final decisions on cuts to TIGER, transit construction & rail this week

With the current federal transportation budget expiring at the end of this month, this week the House is considering a handful of amendments and taking a final vote on the 2018 fiscal year budget. Up for debate are amendments that could improve — or further damage — the House’s already problematic transportation budget for 2018.

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Elected officials and local organizations: Support TIGER & public transit funding

Facing the prospect of severe cuts from the Trump administration and Congress, T4America is looking for elected officials and organizations to show their support for investing in smart projects to move goods, move people and support the local economies that our nation’s prosperity is built on.

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House & Senate reject president’s request to end all federally supported transit construction

Over the last week, House and Senate committees have both passed transportation budget bills for the upcoming year. For the most part they again rejected President Trump’s requests to eliminate the TIGER grant program, halt all new federally supported transit construction, and slash passenger rail service.

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Trump admin’s full budget proposal makes clear their intent to end federal support for transit construction

The Trump administration released their full budget proposal for 2018, ending any possible uncertainty about their belief that highway projects are always inherently in the national interest, transit is explicitly a local concern, and leveraging greater local and state investment in transportation is not a trend to be encouraged.

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Avoiding a government shutdown, Congress moves to preserve TIGER and transit funding — for now

In a budget deal to fund the government through the end of September, Congress partially accommodated the President’s requests for more defense and security spending, but ignored his requests to eliminate funding for TIGER, new transit construction, and other programs vital for building strong local communities.

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[VIDEO] The future of federal passenger rail funding

After months of talk about investing in infrastructure, one of President Trump’s first acts on infrastructure was to propose eliminating funding for several crucial transportation programs, including long-distance passenger rail. We convened a small panel of experts to explain about the impacts on passenger rail and what interested advocates and local leaders need to know.

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162 organizations and local business and elected leaders from 30 states urge Congress to support TIGER & public transit funding

162 organizations, including elected state/local officials and chambers of commerce, sent a letter to House and Senate appropriators today urging them to preserve funding for competitive TIGER grants and the construction of new public transit service. Both are vital programs that support smart investment and also encourage local communities to raise their own funding to invest in their priority projects.

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Trump admin moving to end transit construction program and TIGER immediately

New documents released this week by the Trump administration make it clear that 2018 won’t be soon enough to eliminate funding for future transit construction and TIGER competitive grants — they want them gone now, in 2017.

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Seven things to know about President Trump’s budget proposal

There is no good news for transportation in President Trump’s first budget request to Congress. We take a look beyond the headlines and unpack seven things you need to know about this first salvo in the annual budget-making

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Trump’s budget will hurt local communities

President Trump’s first budget request for Congress is a direct assault on smart infrastructure investment that will do damage to cities and towns of all sizes — from the biggest coastal cities down to small rural towns. Tell your representatives that this proposal is a non-starter and appropriators in Congress should start from scratch.

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President Trump’s budget request severely undercuts stated commitment to investing in infrastructure

press release

Earlier today, President Trump released his budget proposal for FY 2018 that cuts the U.S. Department of Transportation’s discretionary budget by 13 percent, ends the popular TIGER competitive grant program, eliminates the New & Small Starts transit construction program, and terminates funding for long-distance passenger rail funding, among other notable cuts.

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President Trump’s federal infrastructure priorities likely to be revealed this week

There’s no need to wait months for President Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure package to discover the transportation priorities of this president — they’ll be clearly telegraphed with the release of his first annual budget later this week. For months there’s been endless discussion of the President’s $1 trillion pledge to “build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and […]

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Do our federal transportation priorities match the rhetoric we use to justify more spending?

Photo via WSDOT/Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/8670279118

With the Trump administration readying both an annual budget and discussing a possible large infrastructure package, Transportation for America this morning urged a key Senate subcommittee not to stop investing in programs that promote innovation, encourage collaboration and maximize benefits for local communities.

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Help make TIGER roar in this year’s budget

Though the multi-year transportation bill is behind us, Congress is currently considering an annual transportation spending bill with $600 million for the competitive TIGER grant program — an increase of $100 million over existing funding amounts. We need to support it this week as Congress finalizes a new budget to carry us into next year.

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US House approves bill by a thin margin that makes cuts to TIGER, transit construction and passenger rail

Late Tuesday night, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass their yearly transportation spending bill with just 6 votes separating the bill from defeat. While the cuts to TIGER, Amtrak and New Starts transit capital programs were unfortunately approved by the House, it’s unlikely this bill will become law any time soon. That’s because of the Senate’s likely inability to pass any annual spending bills this summer due to the parties’ lack of agreement on overall funding for the government this year.

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