HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION     “Congress’s approval last December [2015] of a five-year bill to spend $305 billion to improve the nation's highway system occasioned much self-congratulation that I the lawmakers actually got something done. But with an increase in the gasoline tax politically off-limits, the means for paying for it are dubious and uncertain. This was the longest-term highway bill passed since 1998 and thirty-fifth extension of an authorization- of highway construction since 2005. Some of the extensions of the program approved by Congress lasted for only three months. The previous extension was for just over three weeks. Such practices don't allow planning of the construction or repair of highways and bridges and mass-transit systems.” Drew, Elizabeth, “A Country Breaking Down,” pp: 30-32, in The New York Review, February 25, 2016.