By:  Cain                                             S.C.R. No. 91
                             SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
    1-1        WHEREAS, The Highway Trust Fund, the Aviation Trust Fund, the
    1-2  Inland Waterways Trust Fund, and the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund
    1-3  are wholly user-financed and do not contribute one dime to the
    1-4  federal deficit; and
    1-5        WHEREAS, Currently a $33 billion cash balance ($18.5
    1-6  unobligated balance) is languishing in these trust fund accounts as
    1-7  an accounting measure designed to mask the actual size of the
    1-8  federal deficit and federal spending in other areas; and
    1-9        WHEREAS, Every time a motorist puts gas in the tank or a
   1-10  traveler buys an airline ticket, user fees are paid into the
   1-11  highway and aviation trust funds; congress imposed these fees and
   1-12  other taxes with the assurance to the American public that they
   1-13  would be spent on infrastructure improvements; and
   1-14        WHEREAS, Economists agree that investment in infrastructure
   1-15  helps productivity, creates jobs, and is essential for economic
   1-16  growth; infrastructure spending is the one area that has widespread
   1-17  public support and actually provides a return on taxpayer
   1-18  investment; and
   1-19        WHEREAS, By combining these trust funds with the federal
   1-20  General Fund Budget, these trust fund balances have accrued at the
   1-21  expense of billions of dollars in productivity and safety; and
   1-22        WHEREAS, H.R. 842, the "Truth in Budgeting Act," will remove
   1-23  these trust funds from the General Fund Budget and in doing so will
    2-1  restore integrity to the trust funds which are user-financed,
    2-2  self-supporting, and directed at specific needs and will also
    2-3  restore integrity to the General Fund Budget whose real deficits
    2-4  are currently masked by these trust funds; now, therefore, be it
    2-5        RESOLVED, That the 74th Legislature of the State of Texas
    2-6  hereby urge congress to enact H.R. 842, the "Truth in Budgeting
    2-7  Act," to take the transportation trust funds out of the General
    2-8  Fund Budget; and, be it further
    2-9        RESOLVED, That the Texas Secretary of State forward official
   2-10  copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, to
   2-11  the speaker of the house of representatives and president of the
   2-12  senate of the United States Congress, and to all members of the
   2-13  Texas delegation to the congress with the request that it be
   2-14  officially entered in the Congressional Record as a memorial to the
   2-15  Congress of the United States of America.