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suf? cient amount to offset any new mandatory spending authorized by

Shane Skelton is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Innovation legislation. Paygo applies to the U.S. and Infrastructure. He can be reached at [email protected]

Senate (Senate) and the House. Simi- larly, Cutgo rules, which apply only to the House, require any new manda- tory spending to be matched with an equal or greater amount of spending cuts. The primary difference being that in the House you cannot use new taxes to pay for new spending.

However, these budgetary rules fo- cus only on new spending authorized in a bill occurring in the ? rst year, the aggregate of the ? rst ? ve years, and the total of the ? rst ten years. Fiscal years 2027 and beyond are not with- in the scope of spending considered when applying these laws and rules (with certain exceptions) to a bill that passes in 2016. In other words, the

Committee sidestepped the House budget rules by delaying the provi- sion until 2027, outside the ten-year scoring window. Additional rules may be triggered when the Congressional

Budget Of? ce produces its of? cial cost estimate for the bill, but for now it looks like the Committee threaded the needle.

There are a ? nite number of oppor- tunities for the federal government to improve infrastructure without spending a dime of taxpayer money.

This is one of them. The Transporta- tion and Infrastructure Committee should be applauded for its creativity and its leadership on this issue. Now the full House and Senate must fol- low suit and pass the Water Resources

Development Act with this provision fully intact. Further, Congress should ensure all port and harbor funding needs are met until this provision kicks in (in 2027) by providing the

Army Corps with suf? cient funding to meet all project needs so long as the cost doesn’t exceed HMTF receipts for the year. www.marinelink.com MN 19

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