SOTU FACT CHECK: TRUMP INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN FAILS TO PROVIDE THE NEEDED FEDERAL RESOURCES
President Trump is saying he has a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan. He actually has an infrastructure plan with only $200 billion in federal funding over 10 years. He expects states, localities, and the private sector to come up with $1.3 trillion on their own.
Washington Post: Trump Is Going to Propose An Infrastructure Plan Tonight. It's A Scam [1/30/18]: "At tonight's State of the Union Address, President Trump is going to outline an infrastructure plan. …. Trump and his aides are going to throw around "$1.5 trillion' a lot, but that number is misleading. The White House is proposing an expenditure of only $200 billion over 10 years, which is supposed to translate into $1.5 trillion of total ‘investment,' with the rest of the money to be spent by states, localities, and private investors. …. Not surprisingly, the plan maximizes opportunities for private profits. …Let's be clear on what this kind of private-public partnership isn't. … In the kind of ‘partnership' the Trump Administration wants more of, the government decides it needs a new bridge, so it gives PriveCo Equity Partners a gigantic tax incentive to build the bridge, which the company now owns – and which will charge tolls on in perpetuity."
Politico: Trump's ‘$1 Trillion' Plan Inspires ‘Hunger Games' Angst [1/28/18]: "The infrastructure plan Trump's poised to pitch in Tuesday's State of the Union is already drawing comparisons to the Hunger Games. Instead of the grand, New Deal-style public works program that Trump's eye-popping price tag implies, Democratic lawmakers and mayors fear the plan would set up a vicious, zero-sum scramble for a relatively meager amount of federal cash—while forcing cities and states to scrounge up more of their own money, bringing a surge of privately financed toll roads, and shredding regulations in the name of building projects faster. The federal share of the decade-long program would be $200 billion, a sum Trump himself concedes is ‘not a large amount.' … Already the details that have emerged are unnerving some key infrastructure supporters in Congress, who say it's unrealistic to propose such a mammoth program without money to pay for it."
Governing Magazine: Mayors Skeptical of Trump Infrastructure Plan [1/29/18]: "The broad outlines of Trump's infrastructure plan are well known by now, but the city leaders were concerned about many of the details that are not yet public. …Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said he was ‘pretty skeptical' of the Administration's infrastructure package, because he feared that cities would lose more money in federal grants that would be cut than they would gain from the new infrastructure spending. … Other mayors wondered why cities were being asked to raise more money for the infrastructure package than the federal government would. … The White House plan relies on states and localities either raising the money themselves or bringing in private money to help fund infrastructure improvements. ‘That's not Washington leadership,' [LA Mayor Eric] Garcetti said. ‘Giving us a nickel or a dime for every 95 cents or 90 cents we put in doesn't allow you to count our dollars as your infrastructure package.'"
Politico: Is Trump's Infrastructure Plan Already DOA? [ 1/29/18]: "Both Democrats and Republicans are wary that the plan could signal a move toward devolution of federal responsibility for infrastructure to the states. And White House rhetoric would seem to corroborate that fear. ‘The President wants to allow communities to keep more of their funds and make their own decisions,' said deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters in a statement. One transportation official called the approach ‘a direct repudiation of the federal role in building infrastructure.' … Key Democrats are calling the plan everything from ‘fairy dust' to a ‘bait-and-switch.' They want to know where the money's going to come from for the $200 billion public down payment and are skeptical that that amount of investment would conjure up anything like $1.8 trillion."