Dec. 4, 2017 – The Senate passed its tax overhaul with no provision to route revenues toward a promised $1 trillion infrastructure plan or to fix the Highway Trust Fund’s insolvency crisis. White House officials have reportedly told lawmakers that the Highway Trust Fund would be addressed later on in an infrastructure bill, but the timeline for such a bill is becoming increasingly slippery. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) introduced a motion to amend the tax bill (S. 1 – 115), to use deemed repatriation revenue for infrastructure, but the Senate rejected it, 43-57. The motion would have sent the bill back to the Senate Finance Committee with instructions to “designate the revenue raised by the deemed repatriation provisions of the bill for infrastructure improvements.” The motion’s (predictable) defeat signals the end of the road for that long-held Democratic priority.