Everything I've read about Trump's infrastructure initiative leads me to believe it is planned as a largely unfunded mandate cum strong outsourcing and privatization initiative.
The Federal government isn't going to pay for much of anything. They're telling states to "get it done" and pushing strongly for privatization of public resources as a means of paying for this.
(Think Illinois' Skyway, other toll roads that never met their schedules for shutting down payments to investors and going public, Chicago's public parking garages and parking meters, and many examples farther afield.)
While public projects aren't perfect, this inserts (even more of) a profit motive into overall management, and in practice often ends up providing "less for more". Rather than some supposedly more efficient management, such privatization initiatives seem more often to merely introduce another middle-man -- one having unprecedented control and no competition.
There's a lot of money sloshing around the investment world, looking for "tangible assets" with strong and highly predictable and controllable rates of return. Hedge funds are moving into real estate and rentals. Sovereign wealth funds have wanted a piece of Chicago's infrastructure-based revenue streams. Canadian and other housing prices exploding with foreign investment.
As for "rushing things along", we have a prime example of this and perhaps forerunner of this Federal initiative, with FoxConn in Wisconsin. Things already seem to be going significantly wrong:
So, I don't really see this initiative as an honest effort to improve efficiencies while maintaining current regulation -- regulation that, for its sometimes faults, was usually put into place for good reason and is better than the alternative it replaced.
I see it as an initiative to expedite the enrichment of large private interests who have the current administration's ear -- as well as those of many state and some local governments. (Local is sometimes harder, because you're dealing with people who will directly have to live with the consequences. Once they realize that the people who are on board are selling the rest out.)
Everything I've read about Trump's infrastructure initiative leads me to believe it is planned as a largely unfunded mandate cum strong outsourcing and privatization initiative.
The Federal government isn't going to pay for much of anything. They're telling states to "get it done" and pushing strongly for privatization of public resources as a means of paying for this.
(Think Illinois' Skyway, other toll roads that never met their schedules for shutting down payments to investors and going public, Chicago's public parking garages and parking meters, and many examples farther afield.)
While public projects aren't perfect, this inserts (even more of) a profit motive into overall management, and in practice often ends up providing "less for more". Rather than some supposedly more efficient management, such privatization initiatives seem more often to merely introduce another middle-man -- one having unprecedented control and no competition.
There's a lot of money sloshing around the investment world, looking for "tangible assets" with strong and highly predictable and controllable rates of return. Hedge funds are moving into real estate and rentals. Sovereign wealth funds have wanted a piece of Chicago's infrastructure-based revenue streams. Canadian and other housing prices exploding with foreign investment.
As for "rushing things along", we have a prime example of this and perhaps forerunner of this Federal initiative, with FoxConn in Wisconsin. Things already seem to be going significantly wrong:
http://beltmag.com/blighted-by-foxconn/
So, I don't really see this initiative as an honest effort to improve efficiencies while maintaining current regulation -- regulation that, for its sometimes faults, was usually put into place for good reason and is better than the alternative it replaced.
I see it as an initiative to expedite the enrichment of large private interests who have the current administration's ear -- as well as those of many state and some local governments. (Local is sometimes harder, because you're dealing with people who will directly have to live with the consequences. Once they realize that the people who are on board are selling the rest out.)