[W]ASHINGTON — Senate Democrats unveiled a $1 trillion infrastructure plan Tuesday, challenging President Donald Trump to fulfill a key campaign promise and support the legislation, which they say would create up to 15 million middle-class jobs over 10 years.
Vermont’s two U.S. Senators — who each serve as ranking members on committees with jurisdiction over the federal budget — helped introduce the plan in a mid-morning Capitol press conference.
“Look, this is kind of a ‘no-brainer,’” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee. “Whether you are in the state of Vermont or the state of California, you understand that our infrastructure is crumbling: our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our wastewater plants, our airports, our levies and our dams.”
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that infrastructure is essential for rural communities.
“Often it’s a single bridge that may connect a small community to such essential services as grocery stores or health services or educational opportunities,” he said.
The $1 trillion plan invests in a number of areas. The top funding priorities include the revitalization of bus and train infrastructure ($180 billion), widescale water and sewer upgrades ($110 billion), bridges and road repairs ($100 billion), downtown revitalization projects ($100 billion) and green energy investment ($100 billion).
A number of the proposed investments are tailored to rural areas, including $20 billion to expand affordable broadband access.
In addition, $200 billion would be invested in large, transformative infrastructure projects.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave American infrastructure a D+ in a 2013 scorecard. The organization estimates that $3.6 trillion is needed to fully repair the nation’s infrastructure.
Vermont earned a ‘C’ in the 2014 ASCE report card, and the organization has estimated that hundreds of millions of dollars are needed to bring the state’s roads up to standard. The organization also estimates that over the next 20 years Vermont will need $453 million invested in drinking water infrastructure, $218 million in new wastewater infrastructure and $326 million in school infrastructure needs.
Vermont has benefitted from federal infrastructure funds in recent years, first in appropriations as part of the 2009 economic stimulus, followed by federal emergency money secured after the devastation of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.
That money has helped jumpstart the accelerated bridge-building program, which has helped cut the number of structurally deficient bridges in half since 2009. Fatal car crashes are less frequent, and the quality of roads is at its highest level since at least 2003, according to Vermont Transportation Agency figures.
Gov. Phil Scott supported the idea of expanding infrastructure projects in Vermont on the campaign trail even though an expansion would require matching state funds at a time when Scott is looking to tighten the state’s budget.
“I know the president-elect talked a lot about investment in infrastructure, and that could be beneficial for Vermonters,” Scott told VTDigger in January. “Coming up with more money for the match could be problematic, but if we have time to fully contemplate that and plan for it — and prioritize it — it may make some sense for us.”
President Trump endorsed a $1 trillion public works project while running, and his campaign site promises to turn “crumbling infrastructure into a golden opportunity for accelerated economic growth and more rapid productivity gains with a deficit-neutral plan targeting substantial new infrastructure investments.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-Ny., said he spoke with Trump Monday about the Democratic proposal, and that the president “seems open to a bill this large.”
The funding mechanism may be a sticking point. Trump has focused on public private partnerships and tax incentives for private developers as a means for ramping up infrastructure spending.
At a Tuesday press conference, Democrats rejected tax incentives as the main source of funding for the infrastructure bill.
“President Trump campaigned on rebuilding the infrastructure,” Sanders said. “Let’s do it, but let’s do it in a way that does not provide huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country and to the largest corporations.”
While Trump may be open to the plan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has long opposed federal infrastructure spending, saying that it would further bloat an already problematic federal deficit.
Under President Barack Obama, the federal deficit — defined as the difference between government revenues and spending in one year — has been reduced dramatically.
Still, the deficit remains large — around $441 billion. A Tuesday report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects a $10 trillion increase in the federal debt over the next 10 years from higher annual deficits. This number was calculated assuming a number of Trump’s top priorities are passed, including a large infrastructure bill, ramped up military spending and tax cuts for the wealthy.
Asked about expected opposition by McConnell and other Republican on the grounds that it would grow the deficit, Schumer argued that an infrastructure bill would goose the economy, which in turn would bring in more tax revenue.
He also pointed out that Republican proposals will also put the country deeper in the red.
“I would say to some of our Republican colleagues, ‘Do you feel the same way about tax cuts for the rich? Are they all going to be paid for?” Schumer said.“I doubt it.’
Schumer said members of his caucus felt that an upfront infrastructure investment would pay off, even if it raised the deficit. He said Democrats were looking to close tax loopholes to help pay for the plan, but offered no specifics.
Leahy said that if $2 trillion could be justified to pay for the Iraq War, then domestic infrastructure projects should also be funded.
“I remember during that war people would come up to me in Vermont and say ‘It appears to me you guys spend any kind of money you want to build roads and bridges over there, and then they blow them up,’’ Leahy said. “’Build them here in Vermont. We’ll take care of them.’”
