Infrastructure Trump style

[Eric the Green]

Trump announced his intention to fix "our crumbling infrastructure" in his state of the union address, almost sounding like Bernie Sanders. Good idea. How is he (how are we) going to pay for it? From federal, state, local and private sources, he said. But there's no money for this from any government sources. It has all gone to tax cuts and the military. So unless Trump and the Republicans want to raise back some taxes, infrastructure will not be paid for. Private sources? How will THEY pay for all this building of roads and bridges etc.? Democrats shudder. The private construction companies have to pay for it somehow. Toll roads, it appears. In other words, Trump wants us to go back to the Middle Ages when you had to pay a toll to travel down a road or a river. The Lords shot you or jailed you if you didn't. So much for travelling freely in America, then. Travel only for those who can afford it. I can't see how this helps the economy. The Democrats will not approve this, and most states won't be able to.

Maybe we can pay for it with cuts to the humongous military budget Trump and Republicans want, then. But the military budget increases aren't paid for either. It all just means more and more debt. How about we spend the same amount of money that we take in through taxes, then, more or less. How about some fiscal responsibility, not borrow and spend and send the bill to our grandchildren, if we even have a country left at that point after all this mismanagement.

[pbrower2a]

My suspicion, and it is not surprising that I assume the worst:

I expect as much privatization of the public sector as possible, expecting state governements to give away such infrastructure as may be transformed into profitable activities, to monopolistic gougers who get as much out of users as possible. Sure, those gougers will have incentives to keep it looking good, but it will be as lightly-used as people can get away with using it.

So far, President Trump has done nothing good for people outside of the economic elites. Privatize, monopolize, and brutalize.