The coverage of President Donald Trump’s recent infrastructure plan has harped on one point: there’s not enough funding. The plan, touted as a $1.5 trillion infrastructure stimulus, in actuality only dedicates $200 billion in federal funds over the next ten years for what Trump envisions as “gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land”. For the rest, it relies on state, local, and private investment. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave American infrastructure a D+ rating on its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card and estimates that it will take $4.6 trillion over ten years to get American infrastructure where it needs to be. While this number may be somewhat exaggerated, it’s clear that $200 billion and a shrug to state and local governments is not nearly enough to get the job done. The plan needs to be tweaked.
While critical of the plan, few commentators have proposed solutions to make American infrastructure work. The plan is in need of more dedicated federal dollars, and states and cities need to raise lots of money for their own part, but where will this money come from?…
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