On Tuesday President Trump told lawmakers he was abandoning the private sector aspect of his planned $1 trillion infrastructure package, saying that certain partnerships between the private sector and federal government donโt work.
White House administration officials have been unable to clearly decide how to finance many of the projects they envision to rebuild Americaโs roads, bridges and tunnels. It seems now the administration expects states and localities to foot most of the bill.
The president acknowledged the new approach during a Tuesday meeting with Democrats from the House Ways and Means Committee, who came to the White House to discuss the administrationโs tax code rewrite.
According to Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., who attended the meeting, Trump โemphatically rejected what everybody assumed was his position relative to financing infrastructure and said it doesnโt work.โ
A White House official said that while the administration has researched such approaches, โthey are certainly not the silver bullet for all of our nationโs infrastructure problems and we will continue to consider all viable options.โ
Trump campaigned on a pledge to lead a massive rebuilding effort to overhaul the nationโs crumbling infrastructure. But the effort has been overshadowed by other issues, including the overhaul of Obamacare and a tax code rewrite.
Apparently, the president pointed to the state of Indiana to demonstrate that a public-private partnership on a federal level would not succeed. In 2014, for example, then-Gov. Mike Pence arranged a deal with Isolux Corsan, a Spanish construction firm, to extend a stretch of interstate in the southern part of the state. But the firm had never undertaken a road project in the United States, and it quickly fell behind schedule. The state dissolved its partnership with the company in June and will now issue public debt to finish the roughly 40 percent that remains incomplete.
At the meeting Tuesday, Higgins said Trump indicated the administration instead would seek to pay for infrastructure upgrades through direct federal spending โ either by paying for projects with new tax revenue or taking on new debt.
