Once again, we are getting fake news from the White House, this time regarding one of the president's big campaign promises -- spending to fix our nation's infrastructure.
On the campaign trail, he complained about crumbling bridges, roads and rails, and our power and water systems.
The official White House proposal revolves around a $1.5 trillion infrastructure spending bill. But as is typical from this Administration, what they say doesn't line up with reality. In reality, it is more like a $300 billion plan...way short of what the president is touting. Here’s why…
In the past, government spending on infrastructure generally worked on an 80/20 ratio... the Feds putting up to 80 percent for projects, with states and/or local governments putting up the remaining 20 percent.
The new proposed spending reverses that ratio, making it, in many experts' opinions, unrealistic. The White House says we should look to private funding and other sources of revenue like tolls and taxes...more taxes by that will impact the middle classes, now that we are swimming in money from our huge temporary tax cuts. (Sarcasm here, in case you missed it.)
Even some industry and manufacturing groups, as reported in respected trade publications like Industry Week and Route 50, are skeptical of the president's proposal. As to be expected, some industry officials are being a bit cagey in their quotes so they don’t incur nasty tweets from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I find it curious that the White House continues to push for full funding of a southern border wall for $31 billion that, supposedly, Mexico was going to pay for. Why can’t we use the same 20/80 ratio the president proposes and see how quickly that project gets done? Hey, here’s an idea for the funding the wall… sell ad space on it. Trump himself might buy some to plaster his name all over it.
It seems this infrastructure plan is yet another broken campaign promise accompanied by the usual falsehoods and misdirection we’re getting used to seeing from the White House.