Did you have fun during “Infrastructure Week”? Did you think about infrastructure policy day in, day out? You know who didn’t think about infrastructure policy much this week? Donald Trump, Mr. Infrastructure Week himself. Or, if he thought about it, it sure hasn’t shown up in his public appearances:
It all began on an odd note on Monday, when the president vowed to privatize air traffic control — hardly an urgently desired infrastructure improvement — and then signed a set of air traffic control “principles” in what can only be described as a pantomime of a bill signing.
In hindsight, that might have been the most substantive component of Infrastructure Week. The president visited Cincinnati, Ohio on Wednesday to deliver a campaign rally-style pitch for his proposed infrastructure plan, though he offered none of the specifics that would bring said plan into focus. Instead, he veered off topic for long enough to praise the king of Saudi Arabia and rant about Democratic opposition to his health care plan.
And no wonder:
… the most common theme in the Trump administration’s approach to infrastructure is pure obfuscation about how it will be paid for. If you’re not willing to say forthrightly how you’re going to pay for infrastructure investments, you really cannot be serious about it. As the old adage goes, “show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value”.
The recently released Trump federal budget plan guts infrastructure, period. [...]
The problem holding back increased investment in American infrastructure is simple: politicians are simply unwilling to increase public spending in a transparent way. This must be overcome—America needs a significant investment in public assets, and it needs this investment to be transparent, subject to democratic accountability, and long-lived.
The sketch of the new Trump infrastructure effort included in their budget shows clearly that they do not get this. Instead, the plan is more obfuscation and magical thinking. They claim their plan will lead to $1 trillion in new investments. Yet only $200 billion in new federal spending is specified (and again, this must be balanced against the enormous cuts to public investment already embedded in their overall budget plan). Where does the rest of the funding come from? In a word, nowhere.
We need infrastructure investment. But the word “investment” is kinda important.
● Policy Watch: Another week of weakening labor laws and making us more susceptible to a financial crisis.
● Noncompete agreements hobble junior employees.
● Hundreds of Walmart workers say they've been punished for taking sick days.
● Trump wants to privatize air traffic control. What could possibly go wrong?
● Will Chicago become the epicenter of charter school unionization?
In a move sure to worry neoliberal education reformers, unionized charter school teachers in Chicago are voting this week on whether to formally join forces with the most militant teachers’ union in the country.
The proposed merger—which would be a potential first in the country—would see the more than 1,000 member Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (ChiACTS), Local 4343 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), amalgamate into a single union local with the nearly 30,000-member Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), AFT Local 1.
● A lawsuit against Chipotle could affect millions of workers' overtime pay.
● Baltimore Teachers Union files second grievance over layoffs.
The union said its contracts require administrators to provide union leaders with a seniority list at least 15 days before finalizing layoffs. Union president Marietta English said she received the seniority list for teachers four days before teachers were told they're being laid off. The list for aides came overnight before aides were told, she said.
● China says men who probed Ivanka Trump supplier won't be released. And their relatives are being interrogated, too.
● Trump voters need good economic policy, not empathy.
● Workers Independent News: