Donald Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Is An Expensive Bridge To Nowhere | Crooks and Liars

Donald Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Is An Expensive Bridge To Nowhere | Crooks and Liars
"To be clear, there is plenty of necessary and ‘shovel-ready' infrastructure work to be done in the United States. Thousands of deficient bridges and dams and water and sewer pipes and highway miles need to be replaced or repaired. But these are not profitable enterprises, and Trump's proposal does exactly nothing for them. Rather, Trump and Bannon would boost toll projects - bridges and roads that drivers must pay to use. Electric utilities that already build and maintain lines would get huge tax breaks for what they are already doing. There would be plenty of money for runway extensions, but nothing for mass transit links from the city to the airport. Without such an integrated plan, transportation spending is just a complete waste for everyone except the profiteers. And that's the key takeaway here. Investors would "get a '10 percent pretax profit margin,' according to the plan," writes Ronald Klain. In fact, the entire scheme reads as yet another massive upward transfer of wealth. "Combined with Trump's sweeping business tax break, this would represent a stunning $85 billion after-tax profit for contractors - underwritten by the taxpayers." Economist Paul Krugman calls this exactly what it is: a privatization scam."