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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - July 26, 2017
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This is the July 26, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
While much of the focus this week has been on the future of healthcare efforts in Congress, there are still a number of other agenda items that President Trump has emphasized in his first six months in office. Last week, we looked at what some potential tax policies could look like in the Trump administration. This week, we’ll look to one of Trump’s signature campaign proposals: a $1 trillion infrastructure package.
Today, we will answer three main questions:
- What has Trump pledged in terms of infrastructure, both on the campaign trail and since his inauguration?
- What kind of congressional support exists for such a package?
- When is action on infrastructure expected?
What Trump has pledged on infrastructure
As a candidate
- During the first presidential debate on September 26, 2016, Trump said, “When we have $20 trillion in debt, and our country's a mess, you know, it's one thing to have $20 trillion in debt and our roads are good and our bridges are good and everything's in great shape, our airports. Our airports are like from a third world country.” He suggested that infrastructure could have been improved if money spent in the Middle East had been invested domestically.
- He proposed spending $500 billion on roads and airports and said funding would come from a fund financed through investors. In August 2016, he told the Fox Business Channel, “People would put money into the fund, citizens would put money into the fund and we will rebuild our infrastructure with that fund and it will be a great investment and it’s going to put a lot of people to work.”
- In his “Contract with the American Voter,” a plan that outlined how he would approach his first 100 days in office, Trump said he would work to enact an infrastructure bill. The contract described the bill: “Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over ten years. It is revenue neutral.”
As president
- In June 2017, Trump proposed privatizing air traffic control, taking about 30,000 employees currently working for the Federal Aviation Administration and moving them to a nonprofit organization that would be in charge of only air traffic control at U.S. airports. The new organization would be funded by user fees. Privatizing air traffic control would need to be done through the next FAA reauthorization bill to pass through Congress. At this point, it is unclear if the final bill will include that provision: the House included the plan in its reauthorization bill, but the Senate did not include the privatization provision. It could, however, be included in a future infrastructure bill to be developed later.
- In his budget proposal, Trump specified that the $1 trillion infrastructure investment he wanted was to be enacted over 10 years and would require $200 billion of federal government investment. The rest of the money would be a combination of investment by private companies as well as state and local governments. The proposal outlines the administration’s core thought concerning infrastructure: “The Administration’s goal is to seek long-term reforms on how infrastructure projects are regulated, funded, delivered, and maintained. Providing more Federal funding, on its own, is not the solution to our infrastructure challenges. Rather, we will work to fix underlying incentives, procedures, and policies to spur better infrastructure decisions and outcomes, across a range of sectors.”
Congressional positions on infrastructure spending
In general, both parties agree that infrastructure developments are necessary and important. The difference in positions among legislators concerns where the funding will come from. In April, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) explained the differences, saying, “From a transportation end, it’s easy. There’s bipartisan support for improving infrastructure. Where we always get into trouble is how do we pay for it.”
Republicans
- Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine): Collins has been working with the Trump administration on infrastructure plans. This month, she suggested that infrastructure should be a priority for the administration, saying, “The president would have been better off beginning his agenda with a major infrastructure package. … It would give him a win on an important agenda item for him. It would have been better received by Democrats, Congress and, frankly, citizens across the country.”
- Republicans generally are in favor of infrastructure developments, but they differ on how to pay for it. Reps. John Delaney (D-Md.), Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), and Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) have proposed using repatriated funds from overseas—which would offer funds currently held overseas to come back to the U.S. at a reduced 8.75 percent rate—to fund infrastructure spending. Others, like Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.), have proposed public-private funding partnerships similar to the Trump administration.
Democrats
- In January 2017, just after Trump’s inauguration, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated he wanted to work with Trump on funding infrastructure developments, saying, “We need a really robust investment in infrastructure by the government. We're challenging the president — he talked about it in his campaign — to join us in this and if he does we'll work with him.”
- Democrats generally object to Trump’s plan of using private investment for a majority of the spending; they prefer infrastructure spending to come through direct public investment. In June, Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) said, “He’s talking about 90 percent from the private sector and 10 percent from the feds? It’s not going to happen. It’s exactly backwards.” Schumer also rejected this structure for funding, saying, “What they’ve proposed is privatizing most of our infrastructure to give wealthy financiers tax breaks on projects they were probably going to build anyway.”
What comes next for infrastructure?
The general consensus is that infrastructure legislation will happen in 2018, after legislators address healthcare and tax legislation. Last week, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who chairs the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, said, “I’d like to see infrastructure get done. But I’ve always said, that in terms of how things are sequenced, it’s more likely that they would do tax reform first. And that might push infrastructure into sometime next year.” Thune also indicated that the White House is scheduled to submit a proposal to Congress concerning infrastructure sometime in the fall of 2017.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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