“Between cuts to Fast Starts, Amtrak, and the Highway Trust Fund, infrastructure spending is in for a $40 to $75 billion net reduction over the next decade,” writes Laura Bliss for CityLab.

“Talking out of both sides of the mouth: That’s the best way to think about President Trump’s infrastructure policy.”

“In its infrastructure bill released on Monday, the White House proposed spending $200 billion in federal funds on a grab-bag of programs. But in its fiscal year 2019 budget request, which was also released on Monday, Team Trump lays out a remarkably austere path for roads, bridges, and especially transit systems, with as much as $275 billion in cuts to infrastructure programs…”

“So when you read the words ‘$1.5 trillion infrastructure plan,’ remember two things: (1) no one in the White House has ever suggested actually spending that much money, and (2) if the White House has its way, the federal government will spend somewhere between $40 to $75 billion less on roads, trains, airports, bridges, water and sewer systems, and affordable housing projects than it currently does. Maybe we should stop calling it a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan…”

“It’s possible that President Trump also realizes just how dead-on-arrival the infrastructure plan, in particular, is likely to be. ‘If for any reason, they don’t want to support to it, hey, that’s going to be up to them,‘ he told state and local officials at a White House meeting on Monday. ‘What was very important to me was the military, what was very important to me was the tax cuts, and what was very important to me was regulation.’ Curiously, in the State of the Union address just two weeks ago, the President seemed to suggest the opposite.”

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