Among the supposedly wise folks of Sacramento, there has been much tut-tutting about the fervent anti-Trump opposition of so many Californians.
Don’t you understand, they have said, that the president is merely transactional? Don’t you see the great opportunity to get federal money through him to repair and modernize California’s depleted infrastructure?
Even Gov. Jerry Brown got in the hopeful act, praising Trump for talking about a big $1 trillion infrastructure plan.
Those hopes are now officially dashed.
Trump hasn’t advanced anything resembling a plan for infrastructure. But his administration has put forward enough to show that the $1 trillion infrastructure talk was, like almost everything else about this president, a fraud.
He’s moving towards contributing nothing new – net zero – to infrastructure.
Yes, you’ll hear news reports about $200 billion in federal moneys to leverage private and state and local investment. But that’s only a fraction of what was promised. And the reality is even worse than that.
Trump is seeking to cut $200 billion in other forms of spending for infrastructure. And the new money probably won’t buy much infrastructure. It will provide cover for tax breaks to wealthy investors in infrastructure funds.
The country’s needs on infrastructure are estimated at $2 trillion (and rising) over 10 years. Trump is doing nothing to meet them. It’s time for Democrats to stop praising Trump on infrastructure, and for Sacramento types to stop peddling the fiction that this president is transactional.