TRUMP INFRASTRUCTURE TALK FAKE NEWS

Don’t talk about James Comey and his expected bombshell testimony to Congress. Look at me instead — I’m talking about Infrastructure Week!

Thus begins this week with our president, Donald Trump. But actually, you’ll notice, Trump isn’t talking about infrastructure at all. Really talking about infrastructure would mean talking about a budget that he can’t get passed.

What he’s really talking about is a long-shot plan to privatize the nation’s air traffic control system while at the same time giving the airlines a tax cut. Currently, America’s air traffic controllers are government employees and part of the Federal Aviation Administration, and the airlines pay taxes to cover the approximate $10 billion annual cost to pay them and provide the equipment for them.

Trump said his plan would reduce the number of flight delays and wait times that cost consumers millions of dollars. “We live in a modern age,” Trump said at the White House on Monday, “but our air traffic control system is stuck, painfully, in the past.”

But his plan — short on specifics — is to urge Congress to create a private, nonprofit corporation to hire, manage and fire controllers. To fund it, airlines would “contribute fees” rather than pay taxes.

Given the videos recently of passengers dragged off of overbooked airlines and thousands of flights delayed or cancelled due to airline company technology failures, what could possibly go wrong?

On the other hand, this plan (which really is not Trump’s idea but rather springs from a 2016 House bill that never got a vote) is supported by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association as a way to have more predictable funding, as opposed to the annual spending fights in Congress that have led to furloughs and shutdowns.

Here’s the rest of President Trump’s “infrastructure week:” In coming days he and other administration officials will call on states, cities and private companies to pay more for rebuilding roads, bridges, railways, airports and other types of infrastructure.

Wait, isn’t that what we’re doing here in Tennessee with Gov. Bill Haslam’s “Improve” Act? Our gas and diesel tax is rising by six to 10 cents over a three-year period, along with an increase of $5 per annual car registration — all so we can pay for highway improvements.

Make no mistake, Tennessee and America need roads and other infrastructure improvements — along with the jobs those improvements create.

But Trump’s “plan” is just camouflage and talk. And it’s stolen talk, at that.