Plan lacks funds, details
President Trump doesn’t offer viable payment options.
President Donald Trump is poised to unveil a long-awaited plan Monday that aims to stimulate $1.5 trillion in new spending on the country’s ailing infrastructure over the coming decade, but many lawmakers in both parties say the president isn’t providing a viable way to pay for his initiative.
A year in the making, the proposal is an attempt to fulfill a marquee campaign promise and would rely heavily on states, localities and the private sector to cover the costs of new roads, bridges, waterways and other public works projects.
The plan calls for investing $200 billion in federal money over the coming decade to entice other levels of government and the private sector to raise their spending on infrastructure by more than $1 trillion to hit the administration’s goal of $1.5 trillion in new funding over 10 years. It also seeks to dramatically reduce the time required to obtain environmental permits for such projects.
White House aides say Trump is open to a new source of funding to cover the federal share — such as raising the federal gas tax for the first time since 1993 — but Congress will have to make such decisions.
For now, the White House is suggesting that lawmakers cut money from elsewhere in the budget, including some existing infrastructure programs. That prospect seems unlikely given that Congress just last week reached a bipartisan deal to spend significantly more money over the coming two years.
“I think it’s just dead on arrival. … It’s not a plan that will really work,” said Rep. Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., a member of the House Problem Solvers Caucus that works on bipartisan solutions. “Are Republicans going to embrace any kind of funding plan besides stealing from Peter to pay Paul within the federal government?”
In a statement Sunday, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said legislation “needs to be bipartisan, fiscally responsible and make real long-term investments in our nation.”
He has repeatedly called for a sustainable source of funding. At the recent GOP retreat in West Virginia, he floated the idea of raising the gas tax. It’s “the elephant in the room,” Shuster said.
In a briefing over the weekend for reporters, senior White House aides stressed that Trump’s plan is intended to be an opening bid on legislation that will require bipartisan cooperation to pass.
As crafted, the plan faces obstacles in both parties.
Democrats have long championed public works projects as a way to create jobs and stimulate the economy, but they are calling for a far larger federal investment than Trump will propose. Just last week, House Democrats unveiled an alternative plan, dubbed “A Better Deal to Rebuild America,” that envisioned $1 trillion in direct federal spending — five times what Trump will propose.
Many Republicans, meanwhile, are leery of any new spending, particularly in the wake of passage last year of a $1.5 trillion tax cut plan and last week’s budget agreement that will pump more than $500 billion in additional money into domestic agencies and the Pentagon over two years, the biggest increase in spending in almost a decade.
Trump plans to tout his infrastructure plan on Monday morning at a White House event with state and local officials.
Aides say in coming weeks he will travel around the country to highlight both the need for new infrastructure projects and instances where states and localities have crafted the kind of projects that his administration is trying to stimulate more broadly.
Of the proposed $200 billion in federal spending over the coming decade, half of it would be used to create an incentives program to reward states and localities that invest more in infrastructure projects. The money would be doled out on a competitive basis, with awards that amount to up to 20 percent of a project’s cost, aides said.
To qualify, states and localities would have to be willing to raise new revenue for their projects. White House aides offered several examples, including increases in property taxes or sales taxes or an increase in tolls or other user fees.
Another $50 billion would be directed to rural infrastructure programs, distributed to governors through block grants. That’s in keeping with what White House aides say is a broader philosophical shift to give states and localities a greater say in their infrastructure priorities than the federal government.
Another $20 billion would be spent on “transformative” projects, such as plans to build tunnels for high-speed trains.
The remaining $30 billion would be used to significantly expand loan programs, for private activity bonds and for a capital financing fund. Those provisions are likely to draw more support.
Lawmakers in both parties agree that the lowcost government loan programs for highways and rail projects that began in the late 1990s work well and should be expanded.