Trust fund bill passes

WASHINGTON — Congressman Travis Childers (D-Miss.) joined a bipartisan majority of his colleagues July 29 in shoring up the Highway Trust Fund to keep the account solvent through the end of the fiscal year.

The measure, which overwhelmingly passed in the House by a vote of 363 to 68, pumps $389.2 million into Mississippi’s highway program to support 13,536 jobs and save nearly 3,000 jobs that would have been at risk from a funding shortfall.

The legislation also provides essential loans to the Unemployment Trust Fund (UTF) to meet a projected shortfall by early August. The loans are repayable with interest, and the Congressional Budget office has scored the legislation as having no cost to the federal treasury. Without this action, 4.6 million workers could face losing unemployment benefits during August and September because state unemployment programs would be unable to access loans from the UTF.