There's something about the Transportation Trust Fund that the Maryland General Assembly finds irresistable. Whenever budgets get tight, lawmakers just can't seem to keep their hands off the fund -- no matter how depleted it is.

This year, it's the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee that's leading the raid -- adopting a proposal that would steer money that had been intended for transportation into the general fund starting in fiscal 2014, which starts July 1, 2013.

It seems the percentage of the state sales tax that gets put aside for transportation is scheduled to increase from 5.3 percent to 6.5 percent starting that year.  The Department of Legislative Services recommended that lawmakers cap that percentage at 5.3 percent, shifting millions of dollars out of transportation. Despite opposition from transportation advocates such as the Greater Baltimore Committee, the committee agreed.

"By making a change now, the department has sufficient time to make changes to the capital program to account for the loss of revenue," the analysts reasoned.

The Senate is generally hesitant to tinker much with the  committee's budget, so the most likely place for opponents of the move to make their stand is in the House.