House Plays Chicken with Transportation Funding Extension
The House of Representatives passed a 90-day extension funding existing transportation projects Thursday, after weeks of struggle and conservative Republican rebellion made it look like even a two-month extension couldn't pass. The Senate already passed a two-year extension of the bill, but it looks impossible for the House to pass that, The Hill reports. House Republicans have become so anti-spending some Republican-backing groups feel they're bordering on anti-business too. Businesses complained in The New York Times Thursday that such short-term funding makes it hard to get a lot of projects going:
“The majority of the work is supposed to go out in spring and get done by the fall,” said Jeff Shoaf, senior executive director of government affairs at the Associated General Contractors, a group that donated $1 million to candidates in 2010, 80 percent of that to Republicans. “Instead of spending 60 or 70 percent of their budgets, they’re going to cut back to 50 or 40 percent to make sure they have some cash in the fall.”
