Infrastructure After Mid-term Elections, President Says

Lawmakers are unlikely to enact an infrastructure plan until after the 2018 midterm elections and ultimately it could come in the form of multiple bills rather than a single legislative package.
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Lawmakers are unlikely to enact an infrastructure plan until after the 2018 mid-term elections and ultimately it could come in the form of multiple bills rather than a single legislative package.

President Trump said during a recent speech in Ohio that he has asked Republicans and Democrats to come together to deliver the “biggest and boldest infrastructure plan in the last half-century” but that it would most likely have to wait until after the mid-terms. Despite that infrastructure is historically a bipartisan issue, the President accused Democrats of not wanting to provide Republicans with a win prior to the elections.

The President also remarked that his proposal could pass in one bill or in a series of measures, observations made previously by senior Administration officials and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.)

"This is a comprehensive approach the President is taking to infrastructure," Politico reported the Administration official as saying. "So it's unlikely that there'll be one piece of legislation that will contain all of these elements."  The official also said that not everything the President wants to achieve on infrastructure might be completed this year, but would be taken up again next year.

Speaker Ryan said in early March that an infrastructure plan could take up five or six different bills.

The President’s speech in Ohio marked the first public advocacy efforts for the $1.5 trillion infrastructure framework put forth by the Administration in February. That plan contains a number of policy provisions that are detrimental to the truckstop and travel plaza industry, including calls to allow states more flexibility to toll on interstates and to provide states with the ability to commercialize interstate rest areas.

[Administration Rolls Out Infrastructure Plan]

Under the proposal, $200 billion of infrastructure investment would come from the federal government. The plan, which is designed to serve as a guide for lawmakers who ultimately must write the legislation, also places a premium on states and local governments that secure their own money for infrastructure projects. It would also carve out $50 billion for rural infrastructure projects and revamp federal permitting.

 

 

 

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