By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 16 1997; Page A04

Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) is one man on Capitol Hill whom no one wants to cross. But last week he dared some pretty powerful people to do just that.

In his boldest move yet, one of the most audacious members of Congress decided to try to bust the newly signed balanced budget deal so he can launch a giant road-building program that he believes is in the nation's -- and most congressmen's -- best interests.

"I'm not a big spender, but I believe deeply in spending where we should spend money: to build assets to build America," Shuster said last week during an interview. "And the money is there to do it."

And with a hard stare that suggests he'd be happy for the GOP leaders to make his day, he vows: "This will get to the floor [for a vote] one way or the other."

As soon as the bill emerges from his committee, probably Wednesday, the leadership has reason to be concerned. Just last spring, when Shuster decided that the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee he chairs had been shortchanged by the balanced budget agreement, he launched a floor fight that came within two votes of scuttling the agreement. A frazzled House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), working through the night, had to call in all his chits to finally put down the revolt at 3 a.m.

"He's got backbone. He's got guts," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), a member of the committee. "And he's not afraid to go up against any member or leaders."

"Bud just puts his head down and charges forward," adds Rep. James L. Oberstar (Minn.), the committee's ranking Democrat.

Republicans and Democrats who have sided against Shuster's pet issues -- especially a perennial drive to move the bulging highway trust funds "off budget" and hence off-limits for spending other than transportation -- admit they live in fear of reprisals.

Shuster says, "I defy anybody to step forward and say I threatened them with retaliation because it didn't happen." Yet his critics and admirers agree that he "keeps lists" of how members vote and that there is something menacing about the way the chairman parcels out pork-barrel highway projects.

Shuster understands the power to give as well as take away, and at a moment when fiscal restraint has become dogma in Washington, he's unabashedly reminding members that spending and politics have long gone together like pork and beans. His actions may answer a question looming in the wake of the budget deal: Will the old ways return?

Yet at the same time, Shuster, a man of intriguing contrasts who holds advanced degrees in business, is not just about pork. He is also forcing to the fore a profound economic argument made by an array of governors and public policy types that suggests the nation is way behind its Asian and European rivals in keeping up its infrastructure and that such spending is a particularly good way for government to help boost the slow growth in middle-income wages.

"I believe deeply in this," Shuster said, "because we are talking about saving lives, we are talking about America being competitive in the global marketplace, we're talking about creating thousands of jobs."

Clifford Winston, an expert on infrastructure at the Brookings Institution, says Shuster may be right that far more spending is needed to keep the country competitive. But it's impossible to tell now, he added, because of the gross inefficiencies and waste in government spending for which Shuster and his congressional colleagues must bear responsibility.

"Right now the empirical evidence suggests we're wasting billions of dollars," Winston said. Moreover, congressional budget aides note, the budget agreement allows transportation spending to grow at three times the rate of other domestic programs.

A Senate GOP aide complained that Shuster shows no concern about other programs that would have to be cut. "No matter what you give him, it's never enough," the aide said.

"If there's a space in the country that doesn't have concrete on it, Shuster is unhappy," said Richard May, former staff director of the House Budget Committee.

The tantalizing question is will Shuster get his way and, if not, who is willing to stop him?

"Bud Shuster is a very persistent fellow," says House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.). "I think Bud uses the analogy, `I'm like an elephant, I just keep leaning.' And he is leaning."

Shuster, 65, a dapper dresser and physical fitness zealot who frequently does business in the House gymnasium or while jogging, is the most powerful and freewheeling chairman since the demise of former Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan Rostenkowski, an Illinois Democrat who was sent to prison for abuses of office. Ironically, Shuster has potential legal and ethics problems of his own, as a federal grand jury in Boston is examining his involvement in a major highway tunnel project there.

In his bid to greatly enhance the programs under his jurisdiction, Shuster is challenging Gingrich and the majority of other House and Senate GOP and budget leaders by pressing for passage of a new $103 billion highway reauthorization bill that, if enacted, would breach the budget agreement by $34 billion over the coming five years.

With strong bipartisan backing from his 66-member committee -- the largest and most unified panel in Congress -- Shuster has unilaterally declared the spending constraints of the budget agreement obsolete -- largely on the strength of recent studies showing that the government will raise $135 billion more in revenue by 2002.

Shuster's three-year highway bill, dubbed Building Efficient Surface Transportation and Equity Act of 1997 (or BESTEA), has drawn sharp fire from House Republican Conference Chairman John A. Boehner (Ohio), who calls it a budget buster, and Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) and Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), the chairmen of the House and Senate Budget committees and leading architects of the budget deal.

Last week, Kasich and Domenici warned that if Shuster's proposal were to prevail, the agreement to eliminate the deficit by 2002 would quickly unravel, as other committee chairmen and interest groups demanded a share of the projected increased revenue for their pet programs.

"Let's not undermine the budget agreement . . . or have the American people read another story about `Here they go again,' " said Kasich.

Senate transportation leaders last week unveiled their own highway bill covering six years and staying within the budget agreement. A final bill would ultimately have to be reconciled by both houses and signed by the president.

Shuster is openly disdainful of his critics among the GOP leadership. During the interview last week, he charged that Gingrich and others failed to bargain in good faith with him this spring when the budget agreement was being assembled. Moreover, he argued that it was the White House and the Republican leaders who first broke the budget agreement, by adding $27 billion of spending to sweeten the pot in drafting the final version of the legislation.

The leadership's arguments were both "dishonest" and "fraudulent," Shuster asserts. "And the real hooker is that when I thought I was in bona fide negotiations during the budget battle, the speaker said [to me] in front of the leadership that if there is more money, `You'll be first in line,' " he said.

House leaders have vowed to block Shuster's bill from coming to the floor -- where it likely would be approved because of the bounty of popular highways and bridge projects.

"This is not a dictatorship," Shuster fumed. "It's a representative government. I deserve a vote and I will fully accept the will of the House."

A wealthy former computer industry executive who owns a large farm outside Altoona, Pa., Shuster has spent more than two decades in Congress helping to shape national transportation policy. At the same time, he made certain that hundreds of millions of federal dollars were pumped into highway, flood control and other public works projects in his economically depressed south central Pennsylvania district. The 53-mile long, four-lane Bud Shuster Highway -- which connects Altoona to the Pennsylvania Turnpike -- is a lasting monument to his clout in Washington.

After the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994, Shuster claimed the chairmanship of a committee that the Republicans greatly expanded in size and jurisdiction. Like his Democratic predecessors, he has fostered a clear bipartisan attitude, allowing Oberstar and other ranking Democrats to have an important say in policy. But there is never a question of who is boss, and Shuster and his top aide can be abrasive and overbearing -- particularly in dealing with rivals on the Budget and Appropriations committees. Moreover, he has tightened his control over transportation pork-barrel spending -- projects earmarked for particular districts -- largely through default by the Appropriations Committee.

Shuster's BESTEA measure takes a "something-for-everyone" approach, providing huge spending increases for highways, transit and environmental enhancement. It goes a long way toward eliminating regional inequities in the highway spending formula. "I hope they put on my tombstone -- 40 years from now -- he helped build America," Shuster says.

For all the obstacles he faces on Capitol Hill, Shuster may ultimately be thwarted by a more formidable problem. The grand jury in Boston has stepped up its investigation of whether two or more businessmen attempted to buy Shuster's influence over a huge federal highway construction project, according to federal officials.

Prosecutors are investigating Shuster's relationship with a former top aide -- Washington lobbyist Ann Eppard -- and Boston businessmen Richard Goldberg and Nicholas Contos, who had long legal disputes over land that was taken for the $10 billion Central Artery Project, commonly known as the "Big Dig." Investigators are examining allegations that Shuster and Eppard used campaign funds for personal use and whether various financial transactions may ultimately have been designed to benefit Shuster.

Shuster has dismissed the allegations as "baloney." However, some committee members and transportation industry lobbyists say there is mounting concern about the probe and speculation about whether the investigation might eventually frustrate Shuster's ambitious legislation.

"This situation in Boston has weighed very heavily on Shuster and his staff," said one lobbyist. "It's like the elephant in the room that no one talks about."