Trump's Infrastructure Plan Is Bigly Biased Against Cities
President Trump's infrastructure plan  released Monday   is more of a defiance of fiscal logic than  it  is a rational outline. One obvious shortcoming is that  the plan  doesn't offer states and cities federal money as much as invite them to spend their own  which  of course  they could already do.
Perhaps the biggest drawback  though  is that  the plan  pits urban and rural areas against each other when it comes to the small amount of money it does offer. All of America needs investment  but the plan's blatant prejudice against cities would only widen the nation's political and cultural animosities.
 Trump  has disappointed in many ways  but this failure is an acute letdown. In the mid-1980s   Trump  scored one of  his  early p.r. coups with a modest New York City infrastructure triumph  finishing a Central Park skating rink after the city had failed. In 2016   he  ran heavily on the issue – and implied that  he 'd apply  his  supposed building expertise to  his  hometown. “We have the old Long Island Rail Road ”  he  said at one fundraiser  “like we're a third-world country. They have trains that go 250 mph  we have old stuff ”  he  continued  referring to China. “That's not going to happen anymore with  me .”
Yet the proposal  Trump  announced does nothing to advance real high-speed rail in dense corridors where it could work well. London is about to launch a train service to Amsterdam  covering 222 miles in three hours. Here  it still takes nearly four hours to get from New York to Boston  about the same distance.
Real high-speed rail is a multi-billion-dollar  long-term investment. Yet  Trump 's infrastructure proposal offers just $200 billion over a decade to all infrastructure. That's just 20 percent more than what the nation is already spending under an Obama-era law  and it is supposed to cover roads  highways  passenger rail  ports  airports  drinking water  flood control  and wastewater  and “transformative” projects  across 50 states as well as U.S. territories.
Never mind world-class rail  then.  Trump 's infrastructure proposal makes it more difficult to build an element needed just to keep existing rail service: a new tunnel under the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey  so that the century-old one  which serves both Amtrak and Jersey commuters  can be closed and rehabbed. Whereas  the Obama administration  had offered to split the $14 billion or so cost with New York and New Jersey   the Trump administration  dismisses  it  as a “local” project.
And the infrastructure proposal says exactly how much  the administration  cares about such “local” projects. Of the $100 billion the proposal proffers to traditional infrastructure   it  caps the contribution to any one state at $10 billion. That means a state like New York might receive $5 billion for its portion the Hudson tunnel. But after that  it would have only $5 billion for other projects – when the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority alone was expecting $7.6 billion from federal sources for projects ranging from Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway to modernizing its signal systems.
Under the new “rural infrastructure program ” the definition of infrastructure is broader than the overall definition. It includes high-speed internet and government-owned electrical infrastructure  whereas elsewhere in the plan  Trump wants to sell such infrastructure to the private sector.
 The Trump infrastructure plan  is unfair  and economically unwise  beyond money.  The proposal  would also cede far more control to state politicians for rural projects than for urban or suburban ones.  The rural program  would provide 80 percent of  its  $50 billion  or $40 billion  to governors  who would “have discretion to choose individual investments to respond to the unique rural needs of their states ”  the proposal  says.
That's a stark contrast with the larger $100 billion program for everyone else. For  the bigger program   the federal government  not governors  will decide which projects to fund under a complex  likely manipulable formula involving predictions about matters such as “the incorporation of new and evolving technologies” – sometimes a good thing and sometimes not in the real world – and “ economic and social returns on investment.” Yet officials in urban areas often govern more people than entire states. The mayor of New York City has 8.5 million constituents  more than each of all but 11 states.
[TGT]'s infrastructure plan  released Monday   is more of a defiance of fiscal logic than  [TGT]  is a rational outline. One obvious shortcoming is that  [TGT]doesn't offer states and cities federal money as much as invite them to spend their own  which  of course  they could already do.
Perhaps the biggest drawback  though  is that  [TGT]pits urban and rural areas against each other when [TGT] comes to the small amount of money [TGT] does offer. All of America needs investment  but [TGT]'s blatant prejudice against cities would only widen the nation's political and cultural animosities.
 [TGT]has disappointed in many ways  but this failure is an acute letdown. In the mid-1980s   [TGT]scored one of  his  early p.r. coups with a modest New York City infrastructure triumph  finishing a Central Park skating rink after the city had failed. In 2016   he  ran heavily on the issue – and implied that  he 'd apply  his  supposed building expertise to  his  hometown. “We have the old Long Island Rail Road ”  he  said at one fundraiser  “like we're a third-world country. They have trains that go 250 mph  we have old stuff ”  he  continued  referring to China. “That's not going to happen anymore with  me .”
Yet [TGT]announced does nothing to advance real high-speed rail in dense corridors where [TGT] could work well. London is about to launch a train service to Amsterdam  covering 222 miles in three hours. Here  it still takes nearly four hours to get from New York to Boston  about the same distance.
Real high-speed rail is a multi-billion-dollar  long-term investment. Yet  [TGT] offers just $200 billion over a decade to all infrastructure. That's just 20 percent more than what the nation is already spending under an Obama-era law  and it is supposed to cover roads  highways  passenger rail  ports  airports  drinking water  flood control  and wastewater  and “transformative” projects  across 50 states as well as U.S. territories.
Never mind world-class rail  then.  Trump 's infrastructure proposal makes it more difficult to build an element needed just to keep existing rail service: a new tunnel under the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey  so that the century-old one  which serves both Amtrak and Jersey commuters  can be closed and rehabbed. Whereas  the Obama administration  had offered to split the $14 billion or so cost with New York and New Jersey   [TGT]dismisses  [TGT]  as a “local” project.
And the infrastructure proposal says exactly how much  [TGT]cares about such “local” projects. Of the $100 billion the proposal proffers to traditional infrastructure   it  caps the contribution to any one state at $10 billion. That means a state like New York might receive $5 billion for its portion the Hudson tunnel. But after that  it would have only $5 billion for other projects – when the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority alone was expecting $7.6 billion from federal sources for projects ranging from Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway to modernizing its signal systems.
Under the new “rural infrastructure program ” the definition of infrastructure is broader than the overall definition. It includes high-speed internet and government-owned electrical infrastructure  whereas elsewhere in the plan  [TGT] wants to sell such infrastructure to the private sector.
 The [TGT] infrastructure plan  is unfair  and economically unwise  beyond money.  The proposal  would also cede far more control to state politicians for rural projects than for urban or suburban ones.  The rural program  would provide 80 percent of  its  $50 billion  or $40 billion  to governors  who would “have discretion to choose individual investments to respond to the unique rural needs of their states ”  the proposal  says.
That's a stark contrast with the larger $100 billion program for everyone else. For  the bigger program   the federal government  not governors  will decide which projects to fund under a complex  likely manipulable formula involving predictions about matters such as “the incorporation of new and evolving technologies” – sometimes a good thing and sometimes not in the real world – and “ economic and social returns on investment.” Yet officials in urban areas often govern more people than entire states. The mayor of New York City has 8.5 million constituents  more than each of all but 11 states.