States Counterplan 1NC

2NC Solvency- Highways

State control allows for innovation in Highway repair and replacement

To make progress toward a market-based highway system, we should first end the federal role in highway financing. In his 1982 State of the Union address, President Reagan proposed that all federal highway and transit programs, except the interstate highway system, be "turned back" to the states and the related federal gasoline taxes ended. Similar efforts to phase out federal financing of state roads were introduced in 1996 by Sen. Connie Mack (R-FL) and Rep. John Kasich (R-OH). Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) introduced a similar bill in 2002, and Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) have each proposed bills to allow states to fully or partly opt out of federal highway financing.47 Such reforms would give states the freedom to innovate with toll roads, electronic road-pricing technologies, and private highway investment. Unfortunately, these reforms have so far received little action in Congress. But there is a growing acceptance of innovative financing and management of highways in many states. With the devolution of highway financing and control to the states, successful innovations in one state would be copied in other states. And without federal subsidies, state governments would have stronger incentives to ensure that funds were spent efficiently. An additional advantage is that highway financing would be more transparent without the complex federal trust fund. Citizens could better understand how their transportation dollars were being spent. The time is ripe for repeal of the current central planning approach to highway financing. Given more autonomy, state governments and the private sector would have the power and flexibility to meet the huge challenges ahead that America faces in highway infrastructure.

Devolution to the states solves highway investment

Utt 2003 (Ronald, is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Utt is a veteran of budgetary politics in Washington, having served as director of the housing finance division at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and senior economist at the Office of Management and Budget, Past director of economic research at the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts. Associate chief economist of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Proposal to Turn the Federal Highway Program Back to the States Would Relieve Traffic Congestion, November 21^st The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/11/proposal-to-turn-the-federal-highway-program-back-to-the-states-would-relieve-traffic-congestion AS)

Having completed the authorized task of constructing a 41,000-mile interstate highway system from coast to coast and border to border, the federal government has found it difficult to resolve surface transportation problems that are increasingly local in nature and beyond the skill of the Washington bureaucracy and congressional committees. Despite record levels of highway spending, congestion is worsening and roads are deteriorating, and many in Congress and the Administration appear to have little interest in doing much more than continuing the status quo, albeit at higher levels of taxpayer funding. Such an unfortunate outcome would do little more than perpetuate this defective system for another six years and lead to more congestion and infrastructure deterioration. With the expiration of TEA-21 on September 30, 2003, Congress has a once-in-a-decade opportunity to reform the federal highway and transit program in a way that would give greater responsibility and decision-making to the states and metropolitan areas that are confronting costly congestion and growing repair backlogs. The Transportation Empowerment Act is a good place to start and--combined with other proposed legislation like the Freeing Alternatives for Speedy Transportation (FAST) Act (H.R. 1767 and S. 1384)--will lead to greater mobility without increasing taxes.

Federal programs get bogged down in unnecessary bureaucracy- CP allows the states to manage highways efficiently

Furchtgott-Roth 2011 (Diana is the Contributing editor of Real Clear Markets, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a columnist for the Examiner “ Let's Leave Our Roads to the States,” May 26, ”http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/05/26/lets_leave_our_roads_to_the_states_99043.html AS)

Senator Hatch (R-UT), ranking member on the committee, said that states should have more flexibility to raise revenue. Just because someone gives you a car, he said, it doesn't mean that the donor has to pay for the tune-ups. In the same way, just because the federal government funds a road, it should allow states flexibility in funding for maintenance. Another witness, Gabriel Roth, disagreed with Mr. Rendell about the need for a government-funded infrastructure bank. (Full disclosure: Gabriel Roth, who has considerable experience in the transportation field, is my father.) He testified that even with existing funding systems, transportation finance could be provided by the states in partnership with the private sector, rather than by the federal government. Mr. Roth pointed out that other federal laws, such as Davis Bacon, project labor agreements, high-road contracting, and "Buy America" provisions, slow down infrastructure and raise costs. Environmental impact statements can take two years. States are forced to spend money on mass transit, even where there are few users.

State control of highways allows for innovation in funding – creates efficient policy options

Roth 2010 (Gabriel, civil engineer and transportation economist. He is currently a research fellow at the Independent Institute. During his 20 years with the World Bank, he was involved with transportation projects on five continents, “Federal Highway Funding” June, http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/highway-funding/#5 AS)

If the federal government removed itself from highway financing, direct payments for road use could be made directly to state governments through tolls. These sorts of tolls are already in place in New York and New Jersey. An even better solution would be payment of tolls for road use directly to private highway companies, which would cut out government financing completely. This is now technically feasible. Following the success of the HOT lanes in Southern California, many other projects are being pursued across the country. One project is in Northern Virginia. Fluor-Transurban is building and providing most of the funding for HOT lanes on a 14-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway. Drivers will pay to use the lanes with electronic tolling, which will recoup the company's roughly $1 billion investment. HOT lane projects are attractive to governments because they can make use of existing capacity and because the tolls can pay for all or most of the costs.41 Such networks offer congestion-free expressways for those wanting to pay a premium price, in addition to reducing congestion on other roads and creating faster bus services. There are many exciting technological developments in highways, and ending federal intervention would make state governments more likely to seek innovative solutions. Technological advances—such as electronic tolling—have made paying for road services as simple as paying for other sorts of goods. In a world where a fuel tax that is levied on gasoline is an imperfect measure of the wear-and-tear each driver puts on roads, it is vital to explore better ways to finance highways.

Devolution is the only way to solve- ends inflated programs which kill transportation efficiency

Roth 2003 (Gabriel, civil engineer and transportation economist. He is currently a research fellow at the Independent Institute. During his 20 years with the World Bank, he was involved with transportation projects on five continents, “Federal-Free Highways” The Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/federalfree-highways AS)

Other problems with the Highway Trust Fund are: It enables Congress to divert highway funds for non-road purposes, such as transit projects, and to the General Fund. It enables Congress to enforce burdensome regulations (including those from 70 different environmental laws), such as EPA car-pooling and vehicle-testing requirements, which Congress is unable or unwilling to legislate directly. . It encourages expenditure on new roads rather than the maintenance of existing ones. . It requires states to adopt regulations, such as the Davis-Bacon and 'Buy America' provisions, which can raise highway costs by 20 percent or more. . It hampers innovation and flexibility in the financing and operation of roads. . It rarely supports toll roads and privately-provided roads, although users of these facilities have to pay into it all the mandated charges. . And it enables members of Congress to buy votes in their districts by financing "demonstration projects" most of which rank poorly in state highway programs. . What, then, should Congress do? The obvious recommendation is simply not to re-authorize the federal financing of roads; to abolish the FHTF; to eliminate the federal taxes dedicated to it; and to restore highway-financing powers to the states. If federal funding of roads, and the relevant federal taxes, were abolished, each state would finance its roads in accordance with its own priorities

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