funds. let me ask you about the other side of the bill. we talked about the spending. the one things about taxes, we talked about republican bill, democratic bill, in the 80s when reagan had to do a infrastructure bill he put, he created a nickel increase in the gas tax. the thing we funded the infrastructure bills, highway bills through gas taxes under the theory people who drive on roads should pay for them. that stopped happening in the bush years, it s not in your bill, to me it s a signal how far washington has moved on taxes. did you have any discussion with your colleagues on that? ezra, the gas tax was started a long time ago and still funds infrastructure. so we have in fact kept the gas tax, and dedicate the federal gas tax to the highway trust fund which funds our roads, our
other side of the bill. we talked about the spending. the one things about taxes, we talked about republican bill, democratic bill, in the 80s when reagan had to do a infrastructure bill he put, he created a nickel increase in the gas tax. the thing we funded the infrastructure bills, highway bills through gas taxes under the theory people who drive on roads should pay for them. that stopped happening in the bush years, it s not in your bill, to me it s a signal how far washington has moved on taxes. did you have any discussion with your colleagues on that? ezra, the gas tax was started a long time ago and still funds infrastructure. so we have in fact kept the gas tax, and dedicate the federal gas tax to the highway trust fund which funds our roads, our bridges and highways, along with state matching funds, that is how it works. we haven t turned our back on the gas tax, it s true we haven t raised it in a very long time for obvious reasons, because we don t want people to feel the
reduce the debt. they say there is no plan. will washington ever get one, doug? i hope they will. but we had one in bolegs simpson he didn t embrace it and then he embraced with the gang of six plan with john boehner. i don t see any evidence that we re going to get a long term plan. we put one in place and every reason that we can and should do it again. no evidence that we are moving in that direction. eric: what needs to be done? the only thing that we really have bipartisanship in washington over the years is on spending. there is bipartisan support for all the big economist programs, bipartisan for the big highway bills and all the appropriations bills that have come through the spleos. our problem is that that bipartisan support for spending and for stimulus, can t be translated into bipartisan support for really making real cuts to make sure that our
for some temporary period of time. it s the smartest way they can go. we have a fight among republicans, kim, over earmarks. this is the special pork projects members put into bills. and the house is already said they want a moratorium. the senate is resisting. who has got the better argument? they went a week without having a fight with themselves. you know? well, the problem here is that you ve got guys, senate minority leader mcconnell, some of the guys, they . he s the oklahoma senator, imhof is he has a lot of play over the highway bills with which tends to have a lot of earmarks in it. the guys are saying we don t want to give them up. and now, you have these new reformers coming in who just won election and the senator offered this moratorium, that would be only binding on rinz.