Many states are willing to raise their own taxes. Wyoming and maryland raise their own taxes to pay for their infrastructure. Is it big country. If a structure is a really big topic and that is funded differently. Host these are a lot of issues that congress have to wrestle with. They have to fund the highway and there is legislation percolating out there. Sfx summer of hawkins might be open to this idea of raising the gas tax. Guest i do not think that raising the gas tax is going to happen. The president is not in favor of raising the taxes and Public Opinion polls showed that the American Public is against that. I think what president obama goes wrong and his Transportation Plan is to increase federal spending in the centralization of a lot of infrastructure. I think we often let the 50 states be the laboratory of democracy and infrastructure. Say governments can raise their own gas tax whenever they want. They can do more innovative reforms, such as moving to a privatization of the restructure. I think we need to let the 50 states go their own way with the airports, and the highways, and that transit. Host what would that do competitively though . You would have one state that sends best friends sing spends significantly more than another state. What is that mean for trunking companies that have to use these highways . Guest there is a good argument there. A lot of the money goes for example to mass transit. In my view there is no real role for the federal government and mass transit. State and city governments can and should raise their own money for the mass transit system. I think with the federal government gets involved you get a lot of inefficiency and crossover runs. Host could there be some sort of user fee . Guest for mass transit . Host yes. Guest im strongly in favor of that. Eisenhower signed this back into law in 1966 saying that gas tax would pay for highway funding. That is a good system. Unfortunately over time, we have steadily moved away from that. President obama would move even further away from that from a user funded system by taxing corporations to fund our highways which is really the wrong way to go. Host stick with the specifics of this with what the president proposed. 478 billion for the of the sharks are. 238 billion from gas tax and other revenue. And creates Infrastructure Investment bank. Robert fontes, what do you make of his recommendations . Will work will it work . Guest in terms of finding the money to pay for it and in terms of getting agreements that congress and throughout washington, it is tough to say. Theres a lot of money to spend. By decoupling the funding, this is a something that creates a lot of wrinkles. I do not think the public wants to deal with it right now. Finding the money to invest in infrastructure has been the big challenge. Something like the gas tax is a political nonstarter right now. We cant keep kicking the can down the road. Theres a trust fund that is starting to run a negative balance. All 100 senators are going to feel it. There has to be something. They are running out of budgets. They need to get something injected in trust fund. A goes to show that this is a whole system where the user has not really paid for the system for a long time. All of it is heavily subsidized. Highways transit, aviation. Having a different conversation about transportation infrastructure really, what do we need to invest in by nesting that in our larger economic goals . As a conversation we need to have. Once you put that vision behind it, we could see a very good conversation. Guest i think that we could agree that congress has been irresponsible with the Highway Trust Fund. The tax revenues are around 40 billion a year. Is a giant gap that makes it more difficult for congress to pay over. President obama has been irresponsible for proposing a financial Corporate Tax increase. Is not going anywhere in congress. Instead of proposing a real solution, he is claiming in his budget that you want to raise 258 billion dollars from attacks and multinational corporations. Theres not a chance that a Republican Congress would agree with that. Then, we are stuck with that was what to do with the giant gap in the Highway Trust Fund. We disagree on the solution. I would cut the federal spending down to the level of the gas tax revenue. What i think president obama missed the chance here to propose a real solution. Host if the spending was cut down to what the revenue brings in, what would be the result in your opinion . Guest i think all the states would lose on this because they have money appropriated for them that they make longterm decisions on. These are not profits of they can just turn on and turn off. It takes planning and construction. What is went to happen to the Public Transportation is that it will start slowing down the payments to the states. There might be a Silver Lining here and that they are starting to look very carefully and the stuff of they are doing and really prioritizing the types of decisions they have to make right now as opposed to the things that maybe board more aspirational. Host we are just coming out of this recession and starting to recover. Having it an economic would it have an Economic Impact on states . Guest i do not. States know how much money they need to spend on highway and transit than the federal government. Theres a lot of problems with the federal Government Spending the money. The a lot more efficiency when the total government ends. States like texas have historically been cheated by the federal Highway Trust Fund. Host let us get our viewers involved in this conversation. Mark in georgia. Caller good morning. I was watching a video of a man from an institute talking to the epa. They were talking about taxes from the infrastructure to build these hoses houses for the illegal immigrants. They were going to hijack it for transit and stuff like indeed choi and different cities what they call future cities. I have the video and i will put on youtube if you do not know about it. Please answer and tells about that. Thank you. Host do you know anything about this . Guest i do not know. I think there is a larger conversation happening in this country about the roles of cities. The role that infrastructure plays to make anything productive in a sustainable environment for these areas. We have a couple of hesitation conversations around sustainability and things that they are tried to push. By putting all this together and putting mayors in the driver seat, it really changes. As chris was saying, what theyre looking for something very specific. They have the polls on what cities need and the emphasis on sustainability and economic health. It is a very different conversation than what is happening in washington. Host heres a 20 a tweet from one of our viewers. In terms of overall infrastructure, u. S. Rice 25th. Along with the declining education, new companies will not moved to the u. S. To invest. Guest she is implying that we ought to have a better infrastructure and i agree. We have to have the best infrastructure the world. Their differences in opinion on how to get there. I think some of the best infrastructure in the world has been privatized. For example, the best seaports in the airports in the world have been privatized in places like britain. One of the problems in the United States and my view is that a lot of our infrastructure is government owned. Rc parts are government owned. Our airports i government owns. I think that is a mistake. Host what about privatization . Guest there is absolutely a role for the private sector in the infrastructure. We have taken this bicameral approach to this we have private sector infrastructure here and private Public Sector infrastructure there. We are seeing this makes between the private and the public in the nonprofit sectors where their code listing he is. In a lot of cases, it is going to be with the private sector. So much infrastructures already owns by the private sector. Started to inject some of those new ideas and new installations innovations. Host we are talking about the nations infrastructure that president obama is proposing. 478 billion on highways bridges, and mass transit. This is the budget that he released last week in 2016. What is your take on this . The phone number is on the screen. We have a democratic caller. Caller im sorry of sort of online with your first caller. Once the money comes through and they start the projects, then comes the epa. Then comes the environmentalists. How does this project affect the spotted owl . How does this roadway affect the migratory path of termites . It is going to become a boondoggle. It is good to be held up in the courts for years. The lawyers are going to get rich. The money is going to run out and we are going to basically be in the same position that we are on today. Host go ahead. Guest i think they caller expresses the skepticism of the efficiency of our government. I think part of the solution is to decentralize the funding of our infrastructure. Let the states compete with each other over this infrastructure. If one state if they have environmental regulations are too stringents, they can go to other states. They can learn from each other. I think that is the way to solve this problem. Host what you think of this . Guest i think this is sort of a red herring. The real challenge that we have is that we are not creating projects that have state support. If you have projects that people really want to invest in and theres alignment between the public and the private sector, these projects get through without any problems. We have to do is figure out projects that matter to these cities and metropolitan areas. A lot of this will just become the overall process. Host next is fred, a republican caller. Caller what happened to the editor 50 billion that 850 billion stimulus package . I thought i was supposed to go to infrastructure. Somehow, that has all disappeared. I like to know where it went. Guest the stimulus package had a lot and there for tax cuts. Does the biggest share. Infrastructure was the secondlargest share. The campaign was such a long time ago. It is not a cool and green recovery. Infrastructure was a big piece of that. When it came time to injecting money into these projects, it became clear that all we had was shot already and we had to put this money to work really quickly. We had to keep from losing american jobs. A lot of these projects were rehab and maintenance stuff that we had to do. There is pothole refilling. Because we do not have a good sense of Overall Investment needs, some of the big projects that folks were hoping to get out of this had to be tabled because they werent ready to go. Were just able to invest in the immediate shortterm and put americans back to work. Host wiser not adequate assessment of what needs to be done . Guest every state has her own assessments. 20 years ago, you could go to in a metropolitan area and they would not have idea. They were not really connected with their economic trajectory. I think things have changed now. They need to know what kind of projects they need to enhance those economies. We not have a good sense of how to get it done. Guest i think the caller is raising the issue of the stimulus. Theres an interesting issue here mrs. That theres too much focus on the shortterm job creation. The focus instead should be on longterm efficiency. Is the piece of infrastructure needed . Which is the most efficient level of government to fund it . That is the most important than any form of shortterm stimulus. Host hi, glenn. Your question or your comment about the nations infrastructure. Caller i have a quick comment from about what the general men from the Brookings Institute said. People want to use the context of the government. We do not need the government to invest in anything other than the military and think theyre absolutely needed. The off ramps is not where the funding for the whole federated highway system ends. That is a question for the gentlemen from the Cato Institute. Thank you. Guest the interesting thing about the interstate highway system and the 50,000 miles of it. It is virtually all owned by state governments. I think this is something for people to remember. If you bar complaining about potholes and bridges falling down on the interstate, state governments own those highways. They are the group that are ultimately responsible. Currently, federal highway spending goes to a broader array of highways. 160,000 miles of highways. I think that is a mistake. I think one way to reform would be to start narrowing the types of highways that federal funding goes to. I think we are to go back to the original idea of just using federal funding for the interstate highway system and not these broader, other secondary highways that are certainly not mass transit. Host how much money we talking about that the federal government gives to states for the infrastructure needs . Guest for highways, i think about 50 billion or Something Like that. That is used for a lot of different hesitation purposes. Host did the states get that equally . Guest if they come to an agreement. It is based on the loose concept of donors and donees. The states want to get back as much money as they feel like they are conjure booting to the Highway Trust Fund. Because we have injected so much federal funds revenue into the trust fund of the last years the stimulus and then through these bailouts of the government had to do, we have completely blown that system apart. Stay second tribute a lot to the general fund are now losing big like california or new york. We still have the system that rewards states that contribute more to the trust fund. We have to rethink the entire system. Host is that being proposed on capitol hill . Guest absolutely not. Is off the table. It is not being talked about. Guest something that i find very curious is the federal Highway Trust Fund does not misallocated between the states. Some states are winners and some are losers. It is odd that some loser states do not complain more. For example, florida and texas for a long time consistently ive given a higher share a gas tax money than they have got back in spending. A lot of florida and texas politicians do not complain more. We might see more of that in future. Host tony, you are on the air. Caller i have a question for you. Im right outside of moorestown. Is about 100 million that is funded by senior groups. They added six lights. You have to go through them all to get to the Shopping Center on the other side of 25 ee and go through to lights to do that. It is toward the end of the mall. You have to come out gnome is commit suicide because one lane crosses another way. You need to let sue that. Is just amazing. They close the hotels in the rvs in the gas station. They added two more gas stations. It makes no sense. The two lights of their limited to there are six lights and its place. It becomes a very dangerous what they have done. Host all right, chris edwards. Guest the caller is discussing the and efficiency or inefficiency of his local government. Im in norfolk, virginia. They seem to do wasteful things like changing the sidewalks and that sort of stuff. I think the solution here is more transparency by local governments. It is often very difficult to find how local governments are spending their infrastructure money. A few years ago in my neighborhood in northern virginia, they read paves some streets in our neighborhood but not some others here i tried to call complain, but i cannot get an answer. There is no transparency. And i think that is a solution for the local infrastructure. Host is that not an argument for federal guidelines to have the federal government step in . Guest i think it would be even more confusing with levels of federal government involved. I think the same thing with government. No one knows who is responsible. Guest i think they are starting to change. Leveraging is a great example. There is money coming in from the state. They are tried to do something if her in northern virginia. Theyve tried to make sure that those investments are measured. Having much more transparency and how they choose these projects and have them compared to one another. You try to invest limited resources, you have to get the best bang for your buck. Those kinds of things have to be measured against other projects. We can make those decisions and with the limited resources. We are focused on Congestion Relief and mobility. By shifting transportation and making it more about economic growth, we can access Economic Opportunity as opposed to moving things around and change in the types of projects. Host well go back to tennessee. Don, a republican. Caller i have two questions. We voted against the highway. A lost election twice. Still, they decide theyre going to put that highway through. If you lose it, why should you put it through . It took 15 years to put a five mile road through because the epa and Animal Rights are fighting over rattlesnakes or snow worm that they were trying to say. They do not want to cut the writ. It took 15 years to buy build a five mile stretch of highway. If you vote against something they still do it. Host i will have you go first Robert Fontes. Guest i think states like tennessee are starting to reevaluate the role of their Transportation System. Look, you have governors that comment every four to eight years. They bring a whole new set of state transportation officials. A lot of things change and projects. They may look good it years ago they may not look good to the current administration. All these stooges that are happening are starting to gave states a better look at what Transportation System they are trying to build and their own economic growth. Guest to the callers first point about spending when people didnt like it, one of the reasons is that federal money is involved. When i lived in virginia local politicians push for a new streetcar line. As someone who lives in the area, i did not think it made any sense. One of the reasons why local officials want to go ahead is because federal money was dangling out there and it but they ought to grab the feder