The Congressional Budget Office issued a report analyzing three hypothetical bonding proposals to fund transportation. Developed for the Senate Budget Committee, the report found that any form of financing with bonding would be more expensive than regular appropriations. However, CBO reported that only a 2 percent add-on would be incurred with a program like AASHTO's proposed Transportation Finance Corporation. The CBO report, titled “A Comparison of Tax-Credit Bonds, Other Special-Purpose Bonds, and Appropriations in Financing Federal Transportation Programs,” asserts that tax-credit bonds of the type proposed for AASHTO's TFC would be less liquid than Treasury bonds, the most liquid instrument available in the bond market.

CBO's assessment was based on the assumption that 2.36 cents of the 2.86-cent fuel tax currently deposited in the Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund would finance tax credits; transit funding would then be accomplished with bond proceeds. Finally, CBO asserts that a tax-credit bond program would increase the federal budget deficit, due to lost tax revenue from tax credits. Accordingly, AASHTO proposed that the Highway Trust Fund reimburse the Treasury for the scored cost of tax credits from net new revenues to the trust fund. Therefore, no deficit would ensue and no replacement of transit funding required. In addition, by the terms of AASHTO's proposal, tax credits would be deemed taxable income, thus reducing the net cost of the program by one-third.