President's budget offers a 'mixed bag'

摘要

Stone producers hope that a busy highway- and bridge-building season will offset weakness in the housing sector, which is cooling off markedly. Meanwhile, the industry is greeting President Bush's proposed budget of dollar 2.7 trillion for FY 2007 warily. "While highway and transit funding are right in line with, or a little better than, what was authorized under last year's surface-transportation program reauthorization, [our] members are concerned that funding requests for aviation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fall short," says Charles E. Hawkins III, executive vice president and CEO of the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA).