Trump’s Infrastructure Promise Isn’t Happening

Jonathan Chait: “The tax cut probably dealt the fatal blow to infrastructure. Republican leaders convinced Trump that the tax cut would give them a popular accomplishment that they could tout in the midterm elections (it didn’t). And once the tax cut had passed, the deficit soared, and Republicans, following the familiar script, had to start complaining about excessive spending in order to deflect blame for the deficit from their beloved tax cut. Passing a trillion-dollar debt-financed infrastructure bill might have been easy a year or six months ago. At this point, it would be difficult.”

“Trump’s promise to ‘build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, sea ports and airports that our country deserves’ appears destined to go unmet. We will always be able to look back on Trump’s first term and remember the many, many Infrastructure Weeks, which brought Americans of all walks of life together to appreciate the importance of transportation development. The real Infrastructure Week was not in any bill, it was in our hearts all along.”