Bloomberg Business - Paving Roads With Corporate Taxes Has Potential, Dingell Says

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By Jeff Plungis

President Barack Obama's proposal to pay for road and bridge projects through corporate tax changes may be feasible this time around, U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell said.0

Even a deeply partisan Congress sees the need to fund infrastructure improvements, and the president's budget may just have "the nuggets" to get lawmakers to act, Dingell, a first-term Democrat from Michigan, said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast in Washington on Tuesday.

Obama is seeking to tax about $2 trillion in profits stockpiled offshore by U.S. companies, as well as future foreign earnings to pay for infrastructure projects. The proposal made Monday would shift transportation budgets away from a reliance on gasoline taxes, which have become both unpopular with voters and unsustainable for keeping up with the pace of new road projects.

Dingell said she understood the reluctance of both political parties to embrace a higher gas tax, even though an increase is backed by business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Trucking Associations.

"Everybody's chicken," Dingell said. "Nobody wants to increase taxes on the middle class. The numbers may show the economy is better, but people don't feel it."

The White House plan to pay for roads through corporate taxes "doesn't tax an individual," Dingell said. "There may be a nugget in there."

Automobile Workers

The feeling of economic uncertainty is not only weighing on drivers. Dingell said it will also come up in labor agreements set to be negotiated this year between the United Auto Workers and the three U.S.-based carmakers.

"Very few people have focused on how critical the negotiations are going to be for the auto industry this year, the domestic auto industry," she said.

Members of the labor union had to accept a very unpopular two-tiered wage structure in their last contracts, which were signed when General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and the former Chrysler were struggling to survive during the recession. Workers want wage growth, and they want to go back to a traditional one-tier system, Dingell said.

"You've got workers who feel like their wages have stagnated as consumer prices have gone up," Dingell said. "There's this real restlessness among the workers as they see the executives starting to do better."

Pelosi's Leadership

Dingell, 61, is new to Congress, but she's no stranger to Washington politics. She succeeds her husband, John Dingell, who retired from Congress last month after representing their Southeast Michigan district since 1955. She's been active in Michigan politics for decades and was a member of the Democratic National Committee.

Despite Democratic Party losses in the November elections, Dingell said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California still has broad support among Democrats because of her ability to understand the needs of lawmakers from different regions.
Pelosi will be the caucus's leader "as long as she wants to be," Dingell said.
Dingell said Democrats have to do a better job of appealing to voters if they want to reverse their losses in congressional races -- a position that isn't popular among her fellow lawmakers.

"We didn't to a great job, because we lost," Dingell said. "We lost at a national level. We need to understand why we lost. Why are we not connecting with people? We need to talk about our issues in a plain language that everyone understands."

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