Infrastructure seems to always sneak its way into the political discussion. Rightfully so, it's extremely important to maintain a healthy infrastructure, because, without that, it's harder to address other issues that first rely on a healthy infrastructure. Donald Trump's effective efforts to appeal to working class, blue collar America is one of many reasons he was able to win the presidency.
In a political environment where bipartisanship often seems extinct, infrastructure has proven to be universally important regardless of one's leanings. Prominent congressional leaders in the Democratic party have expressed a desire to work with Trump, who plans on passing a plan in his first 100 days of his presidency.
Unfortunately, his plan sucks.
We need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Trump's plan wildly misses the mark.
"We're going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it." - Trump on election night
Everyone should agree with that statement. Our infrastructure has needed improvement for a while, so anything that can help our situation would be quite dandy. Trump's plan wouldn't do that.
Trump's plan isn't necessarily bad with what it does, rather incomplete. His proposal provides $137 billion in tax breaks for private investors who invest in things like toll roads. This idea isn't bad actually, encouraging investment is a great thing for the economy. The problem is, relying fully on the private sector would leave out the areas of infrastructure that are essential for rail transit, but not necessarily profitable.
I was watching a 2010 West Virginia senate debate because I'm a nerd, and Senator Joe Manchin explained this concept perfectly.
"The private market only goes where there's profit. So it's important to maintain the free market while still being able to cover the areas that it happens to miss."
Again, Trump's idea to give tax credits to spur investment is a great thing! But it doesn't do anything about our existing roads. His plan creates more infrastructure, yes, but it doesn't rebuild it. I believe we can rebuild, and expand simultaneously.
Since Trump's proposal is free market oriented, it will not help poor communities because they don't have the adequate funds to generate a profit for it. For example, the tax credits won't repair Flint's water pipes even though it saves lives, simply because many people wouldn't be able to finance it privately, and there would be no profit.
Another concern with this plan is diminishing returns. Randall O'Toole of the Libertarian think tank Cato Institute, believes that the tax credits wouldn't do that much, because the investors were investing in profitable infrastructure such as electrical grids anyway.
It's also important to note that people who invest in these projects are wealthy already. So while some of the credits would encourage investment, some would just be added cash for people already investing.
Tax credits to investors is good. It'll expand our infrastructure, and create jobs for people who didn't have them. Nobody can argue against that. But when it comes to rebuilding already existing infrastructure, his plan misses the point.
