Discretionary Spending
Function 400 - Transportation
Limit Highway Funding to Expected Highway Revenues
CBO periodically issues a compendium of policy options (called Options for Reducing the Deficit) covering a broad range of issues, as well as separate reports that include options for changing federal tax and spending policies in particular areas. This option appears in one of those publications. The options are derived from many sources and reflect a range of possibilities. For each option, CBO presents an estimate of its effects on the budget but makes no recommendations. Inclusion or exclusion of any particular option does not imply an endorsement or rejection by CBO.
| Billions of dollars | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2015-2019 | 2015-2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Change in Spending | |||||||||||||
| Obligation limitations | 0 | -9 | -9 | -10 | -11 | -12 | -13 | -13 | -14 | -15 | -39 | -106 | |
| Outlays | 0 | -2 | -6 | -8 | -9 | -10 | -11 | -11 | -12 | -13 | -24 | -82 | |
Note: This option would take effect in October 2015. Estimates are relative to CBO’s August 2014 baseline projections. Most of the outlays for the highway program are controlled by limitations on obligations set in annual appropriation acts rather than by contract authority (a mandatory form of budget authority) set in authorizing law. By CBO’s estimate, $685 million in contract authority is exempt from the limitations each year; spending stemming from that authority would not be affected by this option.
The last extension of the authorization for the highway program—the Highway Transportation Funding Act of 2014—provides highway funding through May 31, 2015. This option would reduce federal funding for the highway system, starting in fiscal year 2016, by lowering the obligation limitations for the Federal-Aid Highway program to the amount of projected revenues going to the highway account of the Highway Trust Fund. The federal taxes that directly fund the Highway Trust Fund would not change.