CINCINNATI – President Donald Trump promised Wednesday to create a “first-class” system of roads, bridges and waterways by using $200 billion in public funds to generate $1 trillion in investment to pay for construction projects that most public officials agree are badly needed and long overdue.
“America must have the best, fastest and most reliable infrastructure anywhere in the world,” Trump said, pushing his infrastructure plan in middle America as Washington geared up for Thursday’s appearance before Congress by fired FBI Director James Comey.
“We will fix it,” said Trump, standing along the Ohio River. “We will create the first-class infrastructure our country and our people deserve.”
In the speech, the president also pressed the Senate to send him a health care bill, criticized congressional Democrats as “obstructionists” and revisited his controversial decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement.
Trump said that as he campaigned across the country last year, people often asked him why the U.S. was spending money to rebuild other countries when the roads and bridges they travel on needed rebuilding, too.