Trump's Infrastructure Plan

Build He Won’t

I was generally excited about Trump's commitment to infrastructure spending. He's absolutely right when he claims that US roads and bridges are crumbling, and our airports look like Third World countries.

But, as is the case with much of Trump's platform, the devil is in the details.

It looks like a like a toxic mix of crony capitalism and short-sighted privatization. It will cost taxpayers more without actually improving things that are needed.

Discuss.

The author doesn't seem to know what a tax credit is.

Response to OP:

Not to mention, if there was a meaningful investment return in infrastructure, the private sector would already be there. Verizon is in the process of laying fiber in my neighborhood because they can make money in doing so. But there's no money to be made installing a bike path.

Response to gtardo: get bent.

Oh it's Paul Krugman, never mind, I won't be taking this article seriously now.

Perhaps because there's no real economic return on a bike path. It's like planting pretty flowers.

Well no shit, Captain Obvious. And hence the problem. You may not value flowers or a bike path, but they are no different from most other infrastructure projects. No direct economic benefit. That was the entire point of my statement that there isn't a meaningful investment return. You should try to read the posts from time to time, might help.

There's not much indirect economic benefit from flowers and bike paths, either.

I hate how Dems spent eight years saying we need to repair or infastructure but how they suddenly change their minds when the other party is in office. Both parties do that and it is bull shit.

Btw it does cost to much to build in thos country and the result is we end up building half as much. We needed to ditch the prevailing wage provisions and let market rates set wages. We also need to make the contracting process less complicated so more companies bid, not just the big compabies with giant legal departments, so prices get lower.

I don't think Democrats are saying we shouldn't repair infrastructure ... just that it shouldn't be a smokescreen for giveaways to well-connected corporations.

Krugman has been pushing this for a decade so now seeing him flip a 180 is so disingenuous.

He is whining about cost reduction measures which are good. I would also like to see the contracting process simplified so that more companies can bid but if you do those twp things taxpayers will see more infrastructure projects completed for less money.

That's because he's a Clinton puppet and still butt-hurt from the election.

Like Obama did with solyndra?

Not sure how you draw that conclusion. Who has said that we shouldn't spend on infrastructure? The question is whether Trump's proposal can be valid or effective. It looks a lot like crony capitalism. I'd rather we just go for straight forward investment. How you got the idea that liberals and Democrats are against infrastructure spending is puzzling to say the least.

It is basic economics. When you double the price for infrastructure budgets do not magically double. Instead the busget remains the same and they just build or repair half as much.

I am not surprised you are clueless about something so basic. @gul

The whole world is pretty clueless as to how that addresses anything I've said.

And we all know that under Obama, all infrastructure projects were built by the hundreds of thousands of employees of the Federal Department of Cement Pouring.

I used to think that way.
When I lived in the echo chamber.

But dismissing information out of hand because you don't like the source is what leads to getting all your news from Brietbart.

if you disapproved of it then, why don't you disapprove of it now?

It's not quite 2 weeks since the election and Trump DC hotel makes pitch to foreign diplomats, Ivanka sits in on meet with Japanese PM, special meet w India biz partners, new Philippines envoy is Trump biz partner Argentine leaders leaned on re Trump businesses in the country....the beat goes on.

Trump Presidency - a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization. That's basically the M.O.

I've come to suspect that there's a devil's bargain at work here. The Pharisees commit to giving Trump a blank Check to cash in on TrumpPrez, Inc. and shield him from opposition to his profiteering, and in return they get a plank check to advance Dominionism.

IIRC Obama had a big infrastructure proposal and the GOP wouldn't fund it, but I don't recall the details

No, I'm saying that the idea of building a $1 billion dollar project at a cost of only $36 million because of tax credits is hogwash, unless you already owed a fucking fortune in taxes.

most of that sort of thing is done on the state level, and most state governments are dominated by Republicans at the moment. Hide and watch and see how much any of them get done with the power now to act on so-called "conservative principles"

I'm staunchly against any new major infrastructure program. Note a recent article in The Economist pointed out that American airports would NEVER be the glittering jewels that a number of foreign airports are.

Why?

Many of those airports overseas that people go on and on about are intended as showpieces for their respective countries. Thus their home nations poor money into them profit be hanged.

Secondly, many of those airports cater heavily to wealthy international travelers while American airports by and large cater to raw numbers of domestic fliers.

In short, many of those show case airports are Cape Canaveral while most American airports are subway stations.........

Can't disagree with Dayton on the airports, but that doesn't mean there is no need for any infrastructure investment.

The liberal California plan is to disinvest in infrastructure so the highways and airports fall apart, causing people to clamor for high-speed rail. I reckon that means that the top-tier California politicians luckily bought cheap land along the proposed train routes.

Now that Trump is turning the US into a developing banana republic, perhaps we need some flashy airports to attract international investment.

The airports should look like a Casino!

Obama already turned us into a banana republic. Voters were pissed off about it, which is why Trump won.

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...nder-americas-1-trillion-stealth.aspx?ref=yfp

The joint strike fighter is going to be obsolete before it even enters service. It really isn't a good fighter jet (it doesn't climb very well, turn very fast, nor has a good top speed) but LM said that didn't matter because it was stealthy so it could get in and out before enemy fighters knew it was there. The problem is both China and Russia now have passive radar systems which can see it coming.

The heart of the problem is Congress loves multi role planes which do the job two or three different planes used to do. That sounds nice but all to often multi role means does not do anything well. This is what has happened with the JSF. Now it isn't even stealthy enough.

I put this in this thread because Trump says he wants a big military build up but we are building expensive crap and always going for risky fresh sheet designs when we should be copying Russia and evolving and improving existing proven platforms for 1/10th the price. That would result in more capabilities at a much lower price point and mean more of everything can be deployed. Quantity has its own quality on the battlefield. We need to totally rethink our defense budget along those lines.