During Tuesday night's State of the Union, Trump introduced his #InfrastructureScam - and just like his health care and tax plans it will be another massive giveaway to the rich and powerful that will force cities and states to fight against each other in a "Hunger Games"-esque bid for limited infrastructure funds.
Trump’s plan leaves our communities open to exploitation by private companies. Under the plan, our existing public infrastructure - roads, bridges, hospitals, and even our air traffic control towers - will be sold off to Wall Street for pennies on the dollar, allowing them to install new tolls and fees that jack up prices that many individuals and families simply cannot afford. His plan will be funded by cutting critical social safety net programs used by many low income communities like Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, SNAP, and Federal Housing Assistance - making this a $1.3 trillion tax increase on those that can least afford it. To top it all off, Trump’s plan will gut fair labor laws and life-saving environmental protections.
Trump’s plan would:3,4
- Gut environmental protections
- Allow Trump cronies to push projects without public input
- Turn public highways into toll roads
- Sell off public property to distant Wall Street hedge fund landlords
- Pad the profits of contractors for projects already underway
- Give billions in tax handouts to Wall Street corporations
- Fuel the construction of more dirty energy pipelines
- Lower worker pay and sabotage worker power
- Produce few new jobs, as companies will just pocket subsidies on projects already underway
Democrats in Congress have better plans that don’t come at the expense of the social safety net and environmental protections. Their “Millions of Jobs” principles will create millions of jobs by repairing crumbling roads, bridges and schools, supporting 21st century clean-energy projects and rebuilding water systems to keep our drinking water safe.1 To stop Trump’s scam infrastructure plan we need to push Members of Congress to support the bold principles needed to create a just 21st century infrastructure bill.
Not only is Trump’s plan a giveaway for billionaire developers and Wall Street but under his plan poorer cities with high Black populations like Flint, MI would have to compete with wealthier cities to get access to limited federal infrastructure funds.2 Infrastructure plans like Trump’s are how we get lead in our water, high pollution, crumbling roads, diminishing home values, rats in our schools, and limited access to good jobs.
Trump’s plan will not just rob wealth from low-income communities, but it will rob us of our health too. It will dismantle the few remaining environmental protections in place, like NEPA - the National Environmental Policy Act - which require companies to do comprehensive studies of how their projects will impact things like air and water quality. By gutting NEPA and other environmental laws, it will be a return to the rampant and destructive corporate polluting of our communities like the 1950’s and 60’s. Since Black communities already suffer from disproportionately high air and water pollution, Trump will exacerbate the systemic health crisis of asthma, early childhood development issues, lead poisoning, and life-long heart and brain diseases.
But if enough of us speak out in the coming weeks, we can make sure that Trump’s plan is dead on arrival in Congress by pressing Congress to embrace the “Millions of Jobs” principles.
Progressive groups and Democrats in Congress have a better vision for America’s infrastructure - one that invest in the communities that need it most and doesn’t line the pockets of Wall Street. More than 100 members of Congress are supporting the “Millions of Jobs” infrastructure agenda because it focuses on creating long-term, 21st century jobs - not tax breaks for Trump and his billionaire friends. The “Millions of Jobs” principles include:
- Prioritizing public investment over corporate giveaways and selling off public goods.
- Prioritizing racial and gender equity, environmental justice, and worker protections.
- Protecting wages, expanding Buy American provisions, encouraging project labor agreements, and prioritizing the needs of disadvantaged communities — both urban and rural.
- Ensuring the wealthiest Americans and giant corporations who reap the greatest economic benefit from public goods pay their fair share for key investments.
- Ensuring infrastructure investment does not come at the expense of Social Security and other vital programs.
The “Millions of Jobs” vision offers the solutions we need without cutting the social safety net or gutting environmental and fair labor protections. We need to push every Member of Congress to support this bold alternative.
- the Color Of Change team
References:
- H.Con.Res.63 - Supporting efforts to enact a bold jobs and infrastructure package that benefits all Americans, not just billionaires. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/14819?t=10&akid=9030%2E3510445%2E7VAX93
- "How Trump's Infrastructure Plan Could Strain America's Cities." The Atlantic, 29 December 2017. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/17220?t=12&akid=9030%2E3510445%2E7VAX93
- Eric Jaffe, “How Highway Construction Helped Hitler Rise to Power,” CityLab, June 6, 2014.
- Goodkind, “Trump’s Infrastructure Plan is About Making Money, Not Building Roads and Bridges.”
