Trump’s cynical infrastructure plan

President Trump pledged a week ago that America’s roads, bridges, tunnels, trains and other infrastructure “will once again be the envy of the world.” That is devoutly desired by the suburban commuters suffering through the chaos at Penn Station, the straphangers stranded by subway outages and the motorists gridlocked on the way to the Holland Tunnel during afternoon rush hour.

Yet the President’s plan won’t produce anything like the infrastructure nirvana he promises because he, like other politicians, promises what’s popular, yet tries to avoid blame for the burdens necessary to produce it.

Elected officials at all levels of government have long sought to take credit for infrastructure improvements, yet avoid blame for the taxes, tolls or fees needed to pay for them. By paying for new infrastructure by borrowing money, they were able to cut the ribbon at the ceremony opening a new bridge, for example, but leave their successors in office to levy the taxes needed to pay for the construction.

This trick worked for a while, but eventually anxiety about rising government debt made it increasingly difficult to fund new projects by borrowing.

A similar trick has led to poor maintenance of existing infrastructure. Instead of paying for maintenance, politicians postponed it. That meant that they could avoid raising the fares, tolls or taxes needed to pay for maintenance.

Deferring maintenance can, however, go on only so long until breakdowns require repairs to be made on an emergency basis. Neglect of basic upkeep has led to much of the commuting mayhem we face now. Politicians nonetheless defer maintenance as long as they can because it allows them to shift blame for the costs to their successors in office.

Trump claims to have “a $1 trillion investment plan to rebuild infrastructure,” advertised as a long-sought-after, desperately needed recommitment to rebuilding America.

But it calls for the federal government to produce only 20% of these funds. States and localities would have to find the rest. In contrast, under the current federal highway program, the federal government pays for 80% to 100% of the cost with states and localities producing the rest.

The President claims credit for the full $1 trillion, but would shift blame for the burdens needed to raise 80% to governors, mayors and their legislatures. Trump, who ran for President as an outsider, is using a cynical variation of the political insiders’ old tricks.

Trump also ran as a veteran of private business and, in that vein, claims that he can relieve states and localities of having to levy taxes to pay for the 80% of the cost that the federal government won’t provide. They could instead, he claims, get private corporations to pay the cost of, say, repairing a bridge in return for the right to collect tolls.

Yet the President hasn’t really found a new source of money to fix infrastructure because states and localities have always had the option of working with the private sector. Working with it does sometimes makes sense, but is not always easy.

A private corporation won’t commit to repair the bridge unless it can make a profit, but it shouldn’t be allowed to charge excessive tolls, and what tolls are reasonable can be difficult to specify in advance. When Chicago sold a private firm the right to collect the fees at its parking meters, the city sold cheap and the firm raised the fees excessively and cut the number of spaces for disabled people.

The choice of whether to pay for infrastructure improvements through tolls and other user fees or taxes should be up to state and local officials. The President would aggressively prod them in this direction. This coercion enables Trump to take credit for $1 trillion of improvements while — again — shifting the blame to state and local officials for authorizing the tolls and fees on the infrastructure that voters now use for free.

The President has produced neither a complete plan nor a fair one. That will delay the improvements that he rightly wants to speed. Meanwhile, we must commute through crumbling infrastructure with massive delays.