Today, an update on President Trump's Infrastructure plan--
When it comes to infrastructure, we live in a country in which some fare better than others. It's worrisome because the health of a community's infrastructure can be a proxy for its prosperity, present and future. President Trump, like his predecessors, is trying to broaden and deepen prosperity through infrastructure investment. He seeks to achieve this infrastructure investment by a different route though than his predecessors.
With President Trump, it is all about leverage. That is, how does one use public money strategically and parsimoniously to bring in much larger amounts of private dollars into our infrastructure. This is the essence of his plan to catalyze $1 trillion dollars of public and private dollars into the market.
How much public, how much private--well as little public as possible.
How will this work? We are already seeing. Not an extra dollar added to the kitty and we already have a streamlining of the regulatory approval process. We have state and local governments not only streamlining their own processes, but agreeing to put additional sums of their own money for targeted projects. We see overseas, and domestic, investors eager to put their own money to work on these projects.
We are moving into a world wherein public money will be spent, but spent in a more targeted way. Rust belt and rural will be prioritized for public money because it is more difficult to attract private money to these places. Roads, rail, airports, water, development-driven social projects stand to benefit most. The plan will accelerate a pipeline. Infrastructure will be on the legislative docket after healthcare and business tax reform, although tied intimately to tax reform.
Infrastructure financing is not a box of chocolates. Instead it is like plumbing. The president is now tightening one spigot, traditional financing. While he is opening up a spigot wherein the public money is used to leverage private capital.