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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Diana Furchtgott-Roth

INTRODUCTION

America needs transportation that is more abundant and affordable as well as dignified, accessible, and family friendly. Transportation plays a vital role in the prosperity and flourishing of the United States. Americans use trucks, tankers, and trains to keep our supply chains running and cars, transit, and planes to go where we want to go.

Two hundred and forty years ago, Adam Smith recognized that connections were a bedrock of society because they stimulate specialization, innovation, and capital investment. In the following decades, America’s growth was made possible by transportation—first ports and transatlantic shipping, then roads, canals, and eventually railroads pushing westward to create the nation we call home. Access to transportation is part of what made our country great.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), with a requested fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget of $142 billion,’ was originally intended simply to provide a policy framework for transportation safety, rulemaking, and regulation. However, it has evolved to believe that its role is “to deliver the world’s leading transportation system”*—that is, to select individual projects and allocate taxpayer funds in the actual planning, developing, and building of transportation assets. Such a role is held more appropriately by transportation asset owners: primarily states, municipalities, and the private sector.

In addition to providing a safety and regulatory framework through its 11 subcomponents, known as modes, the department has become a de facto grantmaking and lending organization. DOT provides approximately $50 billion in discretionary