I think Trump is genuine about infrastructure investment. He is a bricks and mortar man, who likes things that can be built and touched...and grabbed. But his instincts are for private rather than public investment. US infrastructure is not modern and looks shoddy in comparison with the top European nations, is even behind lesser EU states like Spain that have received funding in recent decades, and does not compare to the big, shiny projects you see popping up in Asia and beyond. Trump sees this as a humiliation, evidence that America is second rate.
If you look at US airports as an example, they're owned by the city, operations are done in house, there is only limited space for private enterprise, and there is a healthy union presence. That's largely a good thing, and they are clunky yet efficient in their own way, but it does mean they look like they've been neglected for the past 40 years. Compare that to Heathrow, which is privately owned and operated, services are outsourced and contracted out, and it has received so much private investment that it now more resembles some hyper modern shopping mall that just so happens to have a couple of runways attached to it.
So I do think he will invest and he will invest big. But it won't be FDR style public works schemes, or the sort of investment Bernie Sanders would like to see. He will attack the unions, sell off public land and utilities, outsource and out contract, open up more opportunity for private enterprise, and resort to opaque and ill advised financing deals to defer short term costs, fund the whole scheme and to satisfy wall street.
from Slate:
Quote:
Under Trump’s plan … the federal government would offer tax credits to private investors interested in funding large infrastructure projects, who would put down some of their own money up front, then borrow the rest on the private bond markets. They would eventually earn their profits on the back end from usage fees, such as highway and bridge tolls (if they built a highway or bridge) or higher water rates (if they fixed up some water mains). So instead of paying for their new roads at tax time, Americans would pay for them during their daily commute. And of course, all these private developers would earn a nice return at the end of the day.
The federal government already offers credit programs designed to help states and cities team up with private-sector investors to finance new infrastructure. Trump’s plan is unusual because, as written, it seems to be targeted at fully private projects, which are less common.
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...d_bridges.html
The left will oppose this because it is an attack on the public sector and the common good, and the right will oppose this because of the socialist superstructure needed to administer the plan. Both these groups express uneasiness about public private partnerships. The irony is that its the kind of wealthy Hillary or Jeb Bush supporters, think 10023 or Crawford, who are most likely to back Trump on this.
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