I got the gist of this from TPM’s Josh Marshall, who’s right to deem this “very important”… it reveals how Rump’s “plan to build infrastructure and create jobs” is just another bait and switch. (Surprise!) He links to two other articles, both of which are excellent and worth reading in toto. I’ve clipped a bit to entice you — but the bottom line is that this is nothing more than a tax-break bonanza for the rich, funded by we the taxpayers and doing little or nothing to actually help the areas that need it. I bolded a couple sentences that are really important. First, the original article:
talkingpointsmemo.com/…
And next, the WAPO opinion piece by Ronald A. Klain, who served as assistant to President Obama and oversaw the team implementing the American Recovery and Renewal Act from 2009-2011.
www.washingtonpost.com/…
Trump’s big infrastructure plan? It’s a trap.
...First, Trump’s plan is not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors….These projects (such as electrical grid modernization or energy pipeline expansion) might already be planned or even underway. There’s no requirement that the tax breaks be used for incremental or otherwise expanded construction efforts; they could all go just to fatten the pockets of investors in previously planned projects.
..Moreover, as others have noted, desperately needed infrastructure projects that are not attractive to private investors — municipal water-system overhauls, repairs of existing roads, replacement of bridges that do not charge tolls — get no help from Trump’s plan.
..Just as David Stockman used deficits caused by the Reagan tax cuts as a rationale to slash social programs three decades ago (the “starve the beast” theory), the deficits caused by Trump’s infrastructure tax cuts will be used to justify cuts in programs. Thus, Democrats should know that every dollar spent on the Trump tax scheme to enrich construction investors and contractors is a dollar that will later be cut from schools, hospitals and seniors.
And here’s Krugman on it (his posts have been painful to read… he can see maybe better than any of us what’s coming):
krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/...®ion=Body&_r=0
Infrastructure Build or Privatization Scam?
...So, what do we know about the Trump infrastructure plan, such as it is? Crucially, it’s not a plan to borrow $1 trillion and spend it on much-needed projects — which would be the straightforward, obvious thing to do. It is, instead, supposed to involve having private investors do the work both of raising money and building the projects — with the aid of a huge tax credit that gives them back 82 percent of the equity they put in.
...First, why involve private investors at all? It’s not as if the federal government is having any trouble raising money…
...Second, how is this kind of scheme supposed to finance investment that doesn’t produce a revenue stream?..
...Third, how much of the investment thus financed would actually be investment that wouldn’t have taken place anyway?…
Suppose that there’s a planned tunnel, which is clearly going to be built; but now it’s renamed the Trump Tunnel, the building and financing are carried out by private firms, and the future tolls and/or rent paid by the government go to those private interests. In that case we haven’t promoted investment at all, we’ve just in effect privatized a public asset — and given the buyers 82 percent of the purchase price in the form of a tax credit….