Oregonian: DeFazio, Wyden try to turn federal transportation funding strategy

A feature article in The Oregonian Monday analyzes how federal transportation budgets have become an earmark haven and how two Oregon congressmen are trying to steer it back toward functional.

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Springfield), chairman of the House Subcommittee for surface transportation, will be in charge of finding solutions to the problem. He says possibilities include a solution called "least-cost transportation planning" which focuses less on how the money is spent, and more on overall improvements made to the system.

"It becomes more mode-neutral, instead of saying this money has to be spent on buses, or that money has to be spent on concrete," he told The Oregonian.

How to do that without raising taxes presents a problem. So in the Senate chamber, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Portland) has another solution. Instead of raising taxes, he has proposed $50 billion in federal bonds to pay for state transportation projects.

"A country that goes through $10 billion to $12 billion a month on the war in Iraq and is doing all this reconstruction overseas ought to get serious about doing some reconstruction here," he said.