Editorial: Trump’s cuts to transportation would hurt economy

Port of Everett

Port of Everett

By The Herald Editorial Board

Someone will have to explain to us the logic in following a call for $1 trillion in infrastructure spending during a presidential campaign with a budget proposal that seeks to cut and in some cases eliminate federal support for a range of transportation projects and services that are vital to the state’s and nation’s economy and quality of life.

President Trump, in order to pay for some $58 billion in new spending in his budget proposal — $54 billion of it to balloon the Defense Department budget to $639 billion — proposes $58 billion in cuts in discretionary spending at 19 other agencies and several other programs. The Environmental Protection Agency and State Department suffer the deepest cuts. But significant cuts are made throughout the federal government, including about $2.4 billion, a 13 percent reduction, for the Transportation Department, reducing its budget to $16.2 billion.

Those cuts, if adopted by Congress, would reach Snohomish County and the rest of Washington state. Among projects in the county that could lose federal funding:

Community Transit’s Swift II bus line, a bus rapid transit route that is supposed to begin service in 2018, connecting the Boeing plant at Paine Field, the park-and-ride at McCollum Park and the park-and-ride at Canyon Park in Bothell. The $66.6 million project was to be split, 70 percent through federal New Starts transportation grants, about 25 percent from state funding and about 5 percent from local tax revenue and other local sources.

(Despite Trump’s budget proposal, Community Transit spokesman Martin Munguia, in a blogpost Friday, said that the project is moving ahead and has authorization from the Federal Transit Administration to begin work prior to final approval of its grant.)

Lynnwood’s extension to Sound Transit’s Link light rail system, which is to connect a Lynnwood station to the larger light rail system by 2023. The $2.35 billion project was to be split with 50 percent federal funding and 50 percent from local and state sources, including car tabs, sales tax and rental car tax.

Trump’s budget also would: cut federal support from many Amtrak routes, including the two that serve Washington state, the Empire Builder and Coast Starlight; seek to privatize airport air traffic control; and eliminate subsidies that provide commercial air service to rural airports.

Most curious, when stood next to Trump’s promise of $1 trillion in infrastructure improvements, is the $499 million in cuts to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program. The TIGER program, created through legislation sponsored in 2009 by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, has provided $4.6 billion in funding for road, rail, transit, ports and even bicycle and pedestrian projects.

Beyond the federal investment, the program leverages state and local funding for such projects, averaging $2 in state and local funding for every $1 in federal spending. TIGER grants have supported 16 projects in the state with $239 million in funding.

Most recently, TIGER provided $10 million last July for $55 million in improvements to cargo-handling facilities at the Port of Everett’s South Terminal, work that will support Boeing’s 777X program.

Another $10 million TIGER grant was the final piece of funding necessary for the $129 million project for a new Mukilteo terminal for Washington State Ferries.

Snohomish County has previously applied for a $16 million TIGER grant to replace the 83-year-old Granite Falls Bridge over the Stillaguamish River, part of the Mountain Loop Scenic Byway between Granite Falls and Darrington.

The TIGER program has faced threats of cuts in the past. House Republicans in 2014 proposed only $100 million for the program. But it has bipartisan support in the Senate. Sen. Murray, who is the ranking minority member on the Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees transportation projects, is joined in her advocacy by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is the subcommittee’s chairwoman.

But more than bipartisanship in Congress will be necessary to save transit programs and transportation grants. Transportation projects in the past could typically count on some level of support from both parties.

Things have now changed.

A month ago, Sound Transit officials were relatively confident of federal funding, noting past support regardless of which party held the White House. Sound Transit spokesman Geoff Patrick told The Herald’s Noah Haglund: “Transportation is strongly linked to economic prosperity. In many ways, it’s a very nonpartisan issue.”

But following release of the president’s budget, Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff described the zero-out of federal funding as a “body blow.”

“We did not anticipate a scenario in which the federal government would completely walk away from the table after decades of partnership with cities across America,” Rogoff said in a release.

Trump, practicing his “art of the deal,” may be making an opening gambit here, asking for everything to position himself before negotiating.

That may work in real estate, but it’s a lousy way to write a budget because it attempts to pit scores of worthy programs and agencies against each other.

Are we to choose between TIGER grants and funding for PBS, between Meals on Wheels and cleanup of Puget Sound, between after-school and summer programs for students and medical research by the National Institutes of Health?

Last year, Congress disregarded President Obama’s budget, and declined testimony from the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Congress, likewise, should round-file President Trump’s budget.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

toon
Editorial cartoons for Monday, July 7

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

A Volunteers of America Western Washington crisis counselor talks with somebody on the phone Thursday, July 28, 2022, in at the VOA Behavioral Health Crisis Call Center in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: Dire results will follow end of LGBTQ+ crisis line

The Trump administration will end funding for a 988 line that serves youths in the LGBTQ+ community.

Comment: Supreme Court’s majority is picking its battles

If a constitutional crisis with Trump must happen, the chief justice wants it on his terms.

Saunders: Combs’ mixed verdict shows perils of over-charging

Granted, the hip-hop mogul is a dirtbag, but prosecutors reached too far to send him to prison.

Comment: RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel turns misinformation into policy

The new CDC panel’s railroading of a decision to pull a flu vaccine foreshadows future unsound decisions.

FILE — The journalist Bill Moyers previews an upcoming broadcast with staffers in New York, in March 2001. Moyers, who served as chief spokesman for President Lyndon Johnson during the American military buildup in Vietnam and then went on to a long and celebrated career as a broadcast journalist, returning repeatedly to the subject of the corruption of American democracy by money and power, died in Manhattan on June 26, 2025. He was 91. (Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)
Comment: Bill Moyers and the power of journalism

His reporting and interviews strengthened democracy by connecting Americans to ideas and each other.

Brooks: AI can’t help students learn to think; it thinks for them

A new study shows deeper learning for those who wrote essays unassisted by large language models.

Do we have to fix Congress to get them to act on Social Security?

Thanks to The Herald Editorial Board for weighing in (probably not for… Continue reading

toon
Editorial: Using discourse to get to common ground

A Building Bridges panel discussion heard from lawmakers and students on disagreeing agreeably.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, June 27, 2025. The sweeping measure Senate Republican leaders hope to push through has many unpopular elements that they despise. But they face a political reckoning on taxes and the scorn of the president if they fail to pass it. (Kent Nishimura/The New York Times)
Editorial: GOP should heed all-caps message on tax policy bill

Trading cuts to Medicaid and more for tax cuts for the wealthy may have consequences for Republicans.

Alaina Livingston, a 4th grade teacher at Silver Furs Elementary, receives her Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic for Everett School District teachers and staff at Evergreen Middle School on Saturday, March 6, 2021 in Everett, Wa. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: RFK Jr., CDC panel pose threat to vaccine access

Pharmacies following newly changed CDC guidelines may restrict access to vaccines for some patients.

Comment: Keep county’s public lands in the public’s hands

Now pulled from consideration, the potential sale threatened the county’s resources and environment.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.