"WASHINGTON — President Trump will lay out a vision this coming week for sharply curtailing the federal government’s funding of the nation’s infrastructure and calling upon states, cities and corporations to shoulder most of the cost of rebuilding roads, bridges, railways and waterways.
He will also endorse a plan to privatize and modernize the nation’s air-traffic control system. That plan, which is to be introduced on Monday at the White House and the subject of a major speech in the Midwest two days later, will be Mr. Trump’s first concrete explanation of how he intends to fulfill a campaign promise to lead $1 trillion in United States infrastructure projects. The goal is to create millions of jobs while doing much-needed reconstruction and updating. But the actual details of the initiative are unsettled, and a more intricate blueprint is still weeks or even months from completion.
What the president will offer instead over the coming days, his advisers said, are the contours of a plan. The federal government would make only a fractional down payment on rebuilding the nation’s aging infrastructure. Mr. Trump would rely on a combination of private industry, state and city tax money, and borrowed cash to finance the rest. It would be a stark departure from ambitious infrastructure programs of the past, in which the government played a major role and devoted substantial resources to paying the cost of large-scale projects."
Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Kate Kelly report for the New York Times June 3, 2017.
SEE ALSO:
"‘Infrastructure Week,’ Designed To Challenge Democrats, Finds No Takers" (Washington Post)
"White House Push For Tolls Alarms Waterway Users" (AgriPulse)
Opinion: "The U.S. Has Forgotten How to Do Infrastructure" (Bloomberg)
"Trump Is Selling a Privatization Scam, and Calling It an Infrastructure Plan" (AlteerNet)
"Trump Launches Infrastructure Initiative With Fake Signing Ceremony" (MSNBC)
"Trump Urges Dems To Work With Him On Infrastructure" (The Hill)
"Trump Rallies His Base With Infrastructure Pitch Ahead of Comey Testimony" (New York Times)
"Trump Ridicules 'Obstructionist' Dems While Calling On Bipartisan Support For Infrastructure" (Politico)
"Trump May Restrict Length Of Environmental Reviews Under Infrastructure Plan" (The Hill)
"Supporters, Protesters Show Up For President Trump's Infrastructure Speech"(WLWT 5 Cincinnati)
