The Democrats double game on infrastructure
President Donald Trump came into office and shocked Democrats with a promise to pass an infrastructure bill.
They did not know quite how to react, especially after Trump began courting the unions that would benefit from the jobs he wanted to create. Then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) cautiously welcomed the idea; California’s then-Gov. Jerry Brown declared: “Amen, brother!”. But quietly, Democrats maneuvered to defeat Trump’s proposals.
Democrats were terrified lest Trump be identified with infrastructure spending, something that Democrats had seen as their own turf since the New Deal era. They want Americans to connect “middle-class” jobs with federal government spending, which means electing Democrats to spend ever-greater amounts of money.
That desire ran up against the left’s regulatory zeal, especially on environmental issues, which has stymied infrastructure spending on large scales
Trump wanted to get rid of red tape in the permitting for infrastructure projects. But he also had a bold, new idea that Democrats found even more threatening: using the private sector to drive investment.
In 2018, Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan, only $200 billion of which would come from the federal government. After all, in areas like broadband, the private sector had already shown itself superior to government “net neutrality” in building out the grid.
Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Theoretically, passing Trump’s infrastructure plan should have been a no-brainer. But the worst-kept secret in Washington is that Republicans are almost as addicted to federal spending as Democrats are. And Republicans in the House — and especially the Senate — were not about to endorse a new model for infrastructure that took money out of their control. Republicans soon lost the House, and a golden opportunity.
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Democrat politicians see infrastructure as a piggy bank to pay for their bad ideas instead of a way to improve America. They were also consumed with Trump hatred which was more important to them than the well-being of America.
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