Scam alert: Trump's $1tn 'infrastructure plan' is a giveaway to the rich Robert Reich

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

At a roundtable discussion with state transportation officials on Friday, Donald Trump said America’s ageing roads, bridges, railways, and water systems were being “scoffed at and laughed” at. He pledged that they “will once again be the envy of the world”.

-snip-

To be sure, America is in dire need of vast investments in infrastructure. The country suffers from overflowing sewage drains, crumbling bridges, rusting railroad tracks, outworn roads, and public transportation systems rivaling those of third-world nations.

The American Society of Civil Engineers, giving America’s overall infrastructure a grade of D-plus, says we would need to spend $3.6tn by 2020 to bring it up to par.

The problem isn’t that we’re being laughed at. It’s that we’re spending hours in traffic jams, disrupted flights, and slow-moving trains. And we’re sacrificing billions in lost productivity, avoidable public health problems, and increased carbon emissions.

But what Donald Trump is proposing won’t help. It’s nothing but a huge and unnecessary tax giveaway to the rich.

His “$1tn infrastructure plan”, unveiled last week, doesn’t amount to $1tn of new federal investment in infrastructure. It would commit $200bn of federal dollars over ten years, combined with about $800bn of assorted tax breaks to get developers to build things instead of the federal government doing it.

And it’s hardly a plan. It’s not much more than a page of talking points.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/10/scam-alert-trumps-1tn-infrastructure-plan

[SunSeeker]

1. Just another one of Trump's reverse-Robin-Hood scams. nt

[kristopher]

2. Bernie Sanders releases a blistering report on Donald Trumps infrastructure package

I was going to make an OP of this, but it really belongs here with Reich's article.

Bernie Sanders releases a blistering report on Donald Trump’s infrastructure package
Updated by Jeff Stein Jun 7, 2017, 11:00am EDT

In 2008, the city of Chicago sold the rights to its parking meters to Morgan Stanley for more than $1 billion. Over the next four years, the city’s parking rates skyrocketed by 800 percent.

In 2011, Virginia entered a 58-year contract with a private company to manage the tolls of the city of Norfolk’s midtown tunnel. The private operator jacked up tolls with a pricing scheme that gave low-income drivers bills as high as $18,000.

These stories are highlighted in a new report from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), set to be released later on Wednesday, intended to warn of the dangers of President Donald Trump’s proposed infrastructure plan.

Like the Senate Democratic caucus, Sanders has embraced the idea of a big infrastructure spending bill to repair the nation’s roads and bridges. But, also like Senate Democrats, Sanders opposes the "public-private partnerships" Trump has proposed to accomplish this objective.

"Trump wants to hand over more critical public infrastructure to private investors who will squeeze profits from the American people by putting up new tolls and exorbitant user fees," Sanders's report says. "That would be unacceptable."

As Brad Plumer explained for Vox about Trump’s initial proposal from the campaign trail...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/7/15753520/bernie-sanders-trump-infrastructure