Infrastructure Construction in a Trump Administration

Rosy predictions of doubled federal support for infrastructure construction across our nation under President Elect Donald Trump are fading quickly, according to a recent post on Trump’s transition website. Despite predictions of Trump supporters Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro that his public private partnership based infrastructure funding and tax plan “could help finance up to a trillion dollars’ worth of projects over a ten year period,” the most recent transportation and infrastructure post on the official Trump administration transition website, https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/transportation-infrastructure.html proposes federal investment of only $550 billion over the ten year period.

This 45% reduction in proposed infrastructure investment by the federal government, taken even before the Trump program faces a spending averse Republican Congress, is a serious blow to the expectations of the construction sector of the American economy. Furthermore, no plan for permanently repairing the $18 billion motor fuel tax shortfall in funding the federal Highway Trust Fund has been proposed. It’s going to be an interesting spring in Washington D.C.