President wants Congress to unite to fix ‘crumbling infrastructure,’ but advocates say questions over revenue sources persist
Transportation advocates said they are happy to see President Trump raise the need for infrastructure investment in his State of the Union speech, but they also are anxious to see concrete plans and funding for improvements to U.S. roads, bridges and ports.
“It’s time to stop talking about investing in infrastructure and get to work fixing it,” said Dave Bauer, chief executive of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, one of several trade groups that have been frustrated by the inaction in Washington despite broad bipartisan support for infrastructure spending.
The president in his address Tuesday night told lawmakers both parties should “unite for a great rebuilding of America’s crumbling infrastructure.”
“I know that Congress is eager to pass an infrastructure bill,” Mr. Trump said. “And I am eager to work with you on legislation to deliver new and important infrastructure investment, including investments in the cutting edge industries of the future. This is not an option, this is a necessity.”
Mr. Trump, who has said he supports spending $1 trillion on infrastructure, offered no details, however, and didn’t mention the spending plan for transportation programs his administration submitted in 2018.
An early draft of the address contained a line in which the president would urge Congress to “pass my proposal” for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, an administration official familiar with the drafting process said before the speech. When other officials saw the draft, they urged that the line be deleted because the president doesn’t actually want Congress to pass the only infrastructure proposal his administration has produced.
Mr. Trump has continued to tell aides and officials that he “hates” central elements of the 2018 infrastructure plan, especially public-private partnerships, according to two people familiar with the speech drafts. The plan would have required cities and states to put up at least 80% of the cost of the plan, likely pushing local government into the arms of private financiers.
That will leave Congress to wrestle with the gap between anticipated revenue and plans for a new spending once the existing $305 billion highway bill passed in 2015 expires next year. Many building programs are supported by the Highway Trust Fund, which gets its revenue from federal fuels taxes, but the flow of money into that fund has lagged behind needs, highway groups say, because the fuel taxes haven’t been raised in nearly 25 years while improved vehicle efficiency has cut into gasoline and diesel consumption.
Congress has periodically pushed general government revenues into the trust fund to make up for shortfalls, and spending advocates believe the fund will need another infusion as soon as next year.
Chris Spear, chief executive of the American Trucking Associations, said lawmakers must address the revenue gap to meet the country’s needs. “A win on this issue will require real investment, not budgetary gimmicks as tried in years past,” Mr. Spear said in a statement.
The Wall Street Journal
By Paul Page
Feb. 6, 2019 11:14 a.m. ET
—Ted Mann contributed to this article.