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Project 2025Chapter 19 › Proposal

Abolish discretionary transportation grants in favor of formula funding

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, chapter 19, p. 621. Written by Diana Furchtgott-Roth.

Abolish discretionary transportation grants in favor of formula funding

The document says “shouldWho acts: Congress, DOTHow: legislationp. 621 in the PDF
What the document says

“DOT’s discretionary grant-making processes should be abolished, and funding should be focused on formulaic distributions to the states”

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, p. 621

The chapter argues that federal money removes the incentive for state and local officials to check whether an investment is worthwhile, because it becomes what it calls someone else's money. It says states know their own needs and are the ones incentivized to weigh long-term maintenance costs, and that at a bare minimum the number of grant programs should be consolidated.

What the document actually says

“DOT’s discretionary grant-making processes should be abolished, and funding should be focused on formulaic distributions to the states”

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, p. 621
That sentence, in plain words

End the grants the department hands out by choice. Send money to states by formula instead.

What this is about

Washington picks which transport projects get money. The book says states should decide instead. Money would go out by a set formula.

No action is recorded against this proposal. That is not evidence that none has been taken. See what the tracker does not yet cover.

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The quotation is the document's own words, exactly as printed, and we check the page number against the book itself before publishing. The paragraph underneath is our summary, not the document's words. So is the plain English version, which is why it sits beside the quotation rather than replacing it.

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