Administration’s Transportation Stimulus Proposal Puts Focus on Nation’s Crumbling Infrastructure, AAA Says

NEWS from AAA South Dakota, Sept. 8 – At a Labor Day event in Milwaukee, President Obama called for a comprehensive program for transportation infrastructure spending. As a down payment, the administration proposes dedicating $50 billion to building and maintaining the nation’s transportation system, including money for roads, airport runways and rail.

AAA South Dakota is pleased the president has again focused on transportation investment as a positive way to further accelerate economic recovery. For more than a year, AAA has been calling on the president and Congress to come forward with a new multi-year transportation reauthorization proposal to shore up the nation’s crumbling highways and bridges.

With more than 37,000 lives lost on our country’s roadways each year, AAA believes the time for action is long overdue.

The president’s plan is not without controversy. It creates a new infrastructure bank and calls for an end to some tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, plus it lays out a new method of returning federal fuel tax dollars to the states which may result in less money coming back to South Dakota. But the administration’s proposals are a starting point for the debate and serve to remind the motoring public of the urgent need for more funding for roads and bridges, both in South Dakota and across the nation.