Obama Proposes $50B for Transportation

President Barack Obama Monday opened discussion of the next six-year transportation reauthorization bill with a proposal to establish an infrastructure bank and spend $50 billion to help fund work on the highways, railroads and airports.

The president’s proposal included money to rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail and overhaul 150 miles of runways, a White House statement said.

Obama also is asking Congress to extend permanently and expand a research-and-development tax credit for the businesses, costing about $100 billion over a decade, Bloomberg News said.

The highway plan includes the establishment of a government-run ‘infrastructure bank’ to authorize and fund the programs. The bank would act as a clearinghouse for project approvals.

The White House did not offer a price tag for the full measure or say how many jobs it would create, but if Congress just reauthorized the expired transportation bill, the new measure would cost about $350 billion over the next six years, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The House Appropriations Committee’s transportation panel in July rejected an earlier request by Obama for $4 billion to create an infrastructure bank to finance new projects, Bloomberg said.