Many things are in flux at the federal level, including transportation funding. Staff will present a verbal update on federal transportation issues at the meeting.

The federal negotiations over tax reform could result in unknown, but potentially significant, decreases to federal funding available for transportation projects.

Congress' tax reform proposals could have dramatic, if poorly understood, impacts to federal transportation funding. Online as web attachments are a few articles that highlight the potentially devastating cuts that the tax reform proposals would enact. For example, the House and Senate tax reform bills both eliminate the tax-exempt municipal bonds that counties use for infrastructure projects and eliminate the tax deductibility of transportation fringe benefits provided to employees that encourage transit use.  In addition, any deficits created by tax breaks will result in sequestration cuts to discretionary programs, which will reduce infrastructure funding.  Finally, there has yet to be action to permanently shore up the federal Highway Trust Fund or the Transit Trust Fund, both of which face near-term bankruptcy under current levels of spending. 

Meanwhile, the President is also discussing an infrastructure plan that would reward states and local jurisdictions for raising funds for infrastructure. This is likely to be a very controversial plan and much remains to be seen in how much support they can muster for a plan that invests $200 billion in federal funds over 10 years.

Staff will present a verbal update at the meeting.

• November 28, 2017 Transportation for America blog post, "Tax reform proposals would cut more than taxes"
• December 5, 2017 article on Curbed.com, "Tax reform's harmful impact on city finances"
• December 7, 2017 article in the Washington Post, "After cutting taxes, Trump looking to localities to raise revenue for infrastructure"