The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Trump calls for unity in State of the Union speech
Trump wants $1.5T for roads, bridges; ties DACA to border wall
In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Donald Trump touched on the nation’s need for infrastructure improvements, calling on Congress to generate $1.5 trillion in investment in roads, bridges, railways and water lines.
But his plan, which includes leveraging state and local money and, “where appropriate,” private sector money, drew raised eyebrows and doubt from Connecticut’s Democratic congressional delegation.
Expectations that states can fork over the lion’s share of infrastructure funding “doesn’t help Connecticut,” Sen. Chris Murphy said. Public-private partnerships — P3 in the infrastructure lexicon — are not practical for major reconstruction projects because they offer investors limited opportunities to turn a profit, he said.
“You cannot rebuild I-95 and the Northeast rail corridor” with public-private partnerships, Murphy said.
In a businesslike speech that marked a departure from Trump’s scalding insults on Twitter, he sketched out a vision of restoring “our building heritage.”
“We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land,” Trump said. “And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.”
Trump had promised a $1 trillion infrastructure investment, with $200 billion in federal dollars leveraging the remainder from states and the private investment world.
In his speech, Trump cast the lack of progress on infrastructure as a regulatory issue.
“America is a nation of builders,” said Trump, a New York hotel and resort construction magnate before winning the White House in 2016. “We built the Empire State Building in just one year. Isn’t it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?”
Trump spoke after a topsyturvy first year in office, in which he failed to replace Obamacare, but won the battle to push through major tax code revisions — an overhaul Democrats have characterized as harmful to high-cost, high-service states like Connecticut. But legislative wins and losses were less a mark of Trump’s first year than his personal attacks and insults, many launched on Twitter, and the ongoing investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump campaign collusion with Russian intelligence and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
Connecticut senators and House members who attended the speech with special guests were looking for olive branches, but few saw such offerings from the president.
“President Trump spent much of the night talking about how great the economy is doing and how great the Republican tax scam is for the American people,’’ said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. “He could not be farther from the truth.”
But a few in the state’s delegation said they maintain hope that deals across the partisan divide in Washington can still be reached.
Rep. Elizabeth Esty, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said infrastructure improvements are “bipartisan work that can be done.”
With congressional elections later this year, however, “we have two months before the primary season takes over and it’s too late,” Esty said. “There’s a narrow window for threading the needle, but I think it can be done.”
Trump touched on the plight of youthful immigrant Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and received legal status under then President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. More than 8,000 live in Connecticut.
But he continued to couple relief from Dreamers to building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the visa lottery and limiting what he has termed “chain migration” — letting in relatives of legal immigrants.
His proposal paralleled a deal he offered last week on DACA, offering legal status for 1.8 million in exchange for a $25 billion border wall “trust fund,” as well as ending the visa lottery and limiting “chain migration” to spouses and minor children.
Trump called the deal “a fair compromise — one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.
Connecticut Democrats were unimpressed.
“It’s a pretty ugly proposal,” Murphy said, whose guest was cancer-screening advocate Caroline Johnson, of New Britain. “It is about radically changing the country’s commitment to immigration. But it’s a conversation that needs to continue.”
A major portion of Connecticut’s infrastructure dates back 50-to-100 years, with some rail bridges built in the late 19th Century. While the infrastructure need right now is the highest, the state’s capacity to rebuild is the lowest.
Earlier this month, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy delayed $4.3 billion in projects as he implored the Legislature to fully fund the state’s depleted Special Transportation Fund.
Both Malloy and his GOP opponents in the Legislature would love nothing better than Washington to weigh in on infrastructure projects. But Trump held out little promise in his speech that extra federal dollars would be riding to the rescue for Connecticut or any state in dire financial straits.
A number of infrastructure reports paint a stark picture of the poor state of repairs of roads, rails, sewers, waterlines and other such necessities in Connecticut.
The 2017 report card of the American Society of Civil Engineers shows Connecticut with 8 percent of its 4,214 bridges structurally deficient, 14 hazardous waste sites on the national priority list, 57 percent of 21,512 miles of roadway in poor condition, and more than $8 billion in wastewater and drinking water infrastructure needs over the next 20 years.
“I’m not just willing but anxious to get to work” on major infrastructure legislation, said Rep. Jim Himes. “I believe (Trump) wants to do it, and I believe there’s a deal to be done.”