While Donald Trump spent an entire campaign promising to be the president for working Americans, Democrats actually stepped up to the plate on Tuesday by proposing an infrastructure plan that will create 15 million jobs.
As ABC News notes, the Democratic plan would invest $210 billion to repair decaying bridges and roads and an additional $200 billion for a “vital infrastructure fund” to go toward other significant projects across the country.
Video of Tuesday’s announcement:
In total, the plan would cost $1 trillion over the span of a decade – the same amount of money Trump promised he would invest if he was elected president.
Despite this pledge, Republicans and the president are likely to oppose the Democratic plan.
“[Democrats are] trying to stake out their own ground on this, but in the end, any infrastructure plan, to get through Congress and signed into law, is going to have to be one that the president agrees with and that enjoys the support of a lot of Republicans,” said GOP Sen. John Thune on Tuesday. “We don’t want to go down the path of another $1 trillion stimulus.”
Despite Thune’s suggestion, the stimulus package signed into law by President Obama in 2009 stopped the economic collapse in its tracks, supported millions of jobs, and laid the foundation for the consistent growth we saw over most of Obama’s two terms.
If today is any indication, though, Trump will ditch his promise to invest in job-creating projects and instead push symbolic plans – like the two pipelines he approved on Tuesday – with virtually no lasting economic benefits.
The investments will certainly please the fossil fuel industry, but they represent a small fraction of the Democratic proposal. The Keystone XL project, in particular, will benefit a Canadian company.
Trump, who announced a new America First policy, has awarded the first major US infrastructure project (Keystone XL) to a Canadian company.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) January 24, 2017
The Democrats’ move to put forward a substantive policy that would create millions of jobs – something Trump hasn’t done – isn’t just smart politics; it’s good policy.
If Trump and Republicans reject it, as it appears they will, then it will prove that their pledge to be the party of working Americans was simply a scam meant to win votes – not a promise they intended to follow through on.
