WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump has vowed to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges, airports and railways, but the path to delivering on that promise is full of potholes. When President Barack Obama tried to do it, a Republican Congress fought him at almost every turn, and Trump would have to contend with his party’s deep-seated dislike for government spending and higher taxes to meet the $1 trillion tab for his proposals.
The transportation industry sees hope in Trump’s plans, which he made the first policy issue in his Wednesday victory speech.
“We are going to fix our inner cities … We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none,” he said. “And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”
But Trump has been vague what about he’d do and what it would cost. During the campaign he said he’d double the $275 billion boost in government infrastructure spending proposed by his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. A recent paper by Trump advisers calls for using federal tax credits to generate $1 trillion in private sector infrastructure investment over a decade. To offset the cost of the credits, U.S. corporations would be encouraged to bring home profits parked overseas to avoid taxes, in exchange for a low tax rate.
If that corporate tax “repatriation” idea sounds familiar, it’s probably because Obama has been urging Congress to do that, and Clinton cited repatriation as the way she would pay for her infrastructure plan.