Chicago Tribune: Lawmakers, Transportation Experts Question Trump's Infrastructure Plan

The following article was published on November 14, 2016. A link to the article can be found here.

By Mary Wisniewski

Illinois legislators and transportation officials say they can't predict what transportation infrastructure policy will be like under the presidential administration of Donald Trump — the Republican said he is for rebuilding the nation's roads and bridges, but it is unclear how it would be funded.

It is also not certain that he would get the Republican-controlled Congress, which passed a new highway bill last year, to agree to a big spending plan.

"We're certainly eager to see the details," said Ken Simonson, chief economist with the Associated General Contractors of America, a Virginia-based trade group.

Trump promised during his campaign to pump $1 trillion of new infrastructure spending into the U.S. economy over 10 years. He repeated the pledge following his victory last week.

"We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals," Trump said. "We're going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it."

For a Republican president-elect, the promise has a Democratic ring, since infrastructure spending has tended to be a Democratic priority. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton also had pledged more money for infrastructure, calling for $275 billion in new spending over five years to be funded through a reform of business taxes.

Trump pushes infrastructure plans, but Congress blocked Obama on issue

The Trump agenda may run into static from the Republican Congress, which has resisted more spending on infrastructure. A bipartisan agreement last year allocated $305 billion for roads, bridges and rail lines over five years, less than the six-year, $478 billion plan President Barack Obama had wanted.

Trump said that his plan will be free, or "revenue neutral" in the language of an Oct. 27 policy statement prepared for his campaign.

The statement said that using $167 billion in tax credits to fund equity plus the low cost of borrowing would spur investment in infrastructure projects. Under the plan, the tax credits would be repaid through the additional taxes generated by the project, including revenues from additional wage income and contractor profits.

But equity is just the start — repayment of debt still would have to come from other sources, either from user fees like tolls, or from more traditional sources of infrastructure revenue, like the federal gas tax, which hasn't been increased since 1993.

Few Illinoisans will have clout with new president; Democrats out in cold

"You're going to need to have a revenue source coming from the infrastructure to repay the loan," said U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, a Democrat who is Illinois' most senior member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Lipinski said he does not think the idea of spurring investments through the use of tax credits is bad, but he is not sure that will get the projects very far without other ways to pay for them.

"The state's going to need to get the money from the same places it gets the money now, by raising taxes," Lipinski said.

Leanne Redden, executive director of the Regional Transportation Authority, said that the RTA is happy that Trump has made infrastructure a priority, since it's a bipartisan issue, but she agreed that there were "not a lot of details" in his plan.

U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, a Democrat on the House Committee on Appropriations, said much is dependent on the willingness of Congress to fund a plan.

"I don't know if it's different because Mr. Trump is the president, if they'll be more willing to work with him," said Quigley, referring to congressional Republicans. "I cannot read him. I don't know if anyone can."

U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren, a suburban Republican, said he is "pleased" Trump made investment in infrastructure a top priority, and that he will be working with Transportation Chair Bill Shuster to ensure Illinois keeps proper levels of federal funding.

"We need to make fiscally responsible investments into our infrastructure without driving up the deficit and debt, as previous efforts have," Hultgren said.

Former RTA head Stephen Schlickman, transportation leader of the Alliance for Regional Development, said Trump will need to be a salesman to the rest of the country, to convince Congress that more infrastructure investment is needed.

"Having the president on a major initiative is always an important step if you're going to get it done," Schlickman said.

Simonson said that support for infrastructure funding is growing — he noted that more than a dozen states in the last four years, many under Republican control, have passed increases in their fuel taxes to raise highway and other infrastructure spending.

"I think the door is open, at least a crack, to other federal revenue sources," Simonson said. "There is budding support for improving infrastructure and a recognition it has to be paid for, whether it's user fees or through broader and more targeted tax measures."

Aside from roads and bridges, more funding is also needed for transit, an especially crucial issue in northern Illinois, where commuters depend on the CTA, Metra and Pace. The CTA is pushing this month to get the City Council to approve a new tax increment financing district to help pay for a Red-Purple Line renovation project before Trump is sworn in. The CTA said that any new administration would slow the process of securing about $1.1 billion in federal grants, which would fund the $2.1 billion project along with CTA and new TIF funding.

Republicans stated in their platform that they want to eliminate Highway Trust Fund spending on projects like mass transit, bike-share programs and rail-to-trail projects. But that does not mean Republican congressmen from suburban areas will go along with it, knowing their votes come from people who ride the train to work, Schlickman said.

As a New Yorker, Trump also may have more awareness of the need for public transit, even if he never used it himself, Lipinski said.

Quigley pointed out that while Trump may have campaigned as a conservative, as president he will have to do things that will annoy people in his own party.

"There's no way he can do things like the big infrastructure package without doing things that are going to aggravate the right wing," Quigley said.

Another possible funding consideration is Trump's feelings for Chicago, which he insulted repeatedly during the campaign and which overwhelmingly voted against him.

"I can't tell you whether he's going to pick winners and losers — most presidents do," said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat. Durbin said the area has prospered under Obama in terms of transportation spending, from high-speed rail to the CTA.

"We've done well with this president," Durbin said. "I don't know what's going to happen with the new president."

Cubs rally breaks CTA, Metra records

It may seem like a long time ago now, but attentive readers may recall that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series on Nov. 2, for the first time since 1908.

A victory parade and rally on Nov. 4 brought millions of fans downtown, and caused both the CTA and Metra to set new ridership records.

Metra carried more than 460,000 passengers the day of the rally, about 40 percent more than an ordinary November Friday. The previous record was 430,488 passengers on July 3, 2007, for a Fourth of July celebration, and the Blackhawks victory parade on June 28, 2013, which saw 425,241 rides.

The CTA saw 1.15 million rail riders on Nov. 4, the highest one-day total in its history. Total rail and bus ridership was 1.9 million, the second highest ridership day on record. The rail ridership numbers broke the previous record set on Oct. 28, the first home game of the World Series.

The CTA's highest ridership day ever was July 3, 2008, at 2.05 million rides.