Transportation Infrastructure Investment
2012-2013 Policy Debate Topic
In its first year, 1916, the Federal highway program was a $5 million public works initiative limited to rural post roads. Since then, the Nation has built a vast highway infrastructure that includes about 4 million miles of roads and 600,000 bridges. The United States spends approximately $160 billion each year on building, operating, and maintaining this system, with about $40 billion of that total coming from the Federal Government. Congress periodically enacts multiyear legislation authorizing spending on surface transportation through the Federal-Aid Highway Program, which distributes the funds to States according to statutory formulas. Most of the money comes…
