Blumenthal Slams Trump Infrastructure Proposal

[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, released the following statement reacting to the infrastructure plan unveiled today by President Trump.

“Want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?” said Blumenthal. “You’ll love President Trump’s infrastructure plan. The plan relies on magical thinking, massive private profits, and a pittance of public investment. It’s a deal straight out of the Trump playbook: enrich private industry at the expense of everyday Americans; reap a profit on the side by selling out our roads and bridges to get-rich-quick schemers and secretive foreign buyers. The President’s pathetic sham makes nothing great except corporate profits, leaving states and localities in the lurch and charging Americans sky-high tolls to commute over infrastructure on the brink of failure.

“Adding insult to injury, President Trump delivered this plan the same day he put forward a budget proposal that guts programs that are critical to Connecticut, like funding for passenger rail, transit, and waterways. The mixed-message mendacity knows no end. I’ll fight for real and robust investment with a dedicated federal funding stream, not Trump’s smoke-and-mirrors scam." 

The Trump plan drastically reduces the federal government’s infrastructure investments from 80 percent to 20 percent, forcing increasingly cash-strapped states to bid on a limited number of available grants. Of the $1.5 trillion in spending proposed in the plan, just $200 billion would be accounted for with unspecified federal funds, opening the door to dramatic infrastructure privatization. The plan also includes a framework to gut existing environmental regulations in the name of rebuilding.