EXCLUSIVE: Trump's newest plan: Spend $1 trillion on infrastructure, without raising taxes

[Frank Cannon]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-trumps-newest-plan-spend-1-trillion-on-infrastructure-without-raising-taxes-130001535.html

Road and bridge builders might turn out to be the biggest winners of this year’s presidential election.

Both candidates have called for big new investments in infrastructure, and Republican Donald Trump now has a new plan to spend a gargantuan sum rebuilding the nation’s economic backbone: $1 trillion. Trump has said before that he’d double the infrastructure spending proposed by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, whose plan calls for $275 billion in direct government spending over five years, plus another $225 billion in private investment. Trump’s new plan, drafted by economic advisors Peter Navarro and Wilbur Ross, would finance up to $1 trillion in spending over a decade.

Trump’s plan would rely heavily on private funding, with the government encouraging investment through a tax credit that would raise the return to investors and lower the cost of borrowing to states and municipalities that would oversee the projects. Unlike Clinton’s plan, there would be no need for new taxes to finance spending. Tax credits would cost the government some money, but taxes collected from the workers and companies participating in such projects would offset the costs, according to Navarro and Ross.

“If there’s ever a great time to do it, it’s got to be now,” Ross, a billionaire private-equity investor, tells Yahoo Finance. “With interest rates so low, this has got to be the best time from a break-even point of view, from a societal point of view.”

The new Trump plan would apply only to projects with a dedicated source of revenue, such as toll roads, airports or utilities financed at least in part by fees paid by users. Those sorts of fees guarantee cash flow back to investors that doesn’t normally exist on “free” resources such as parks or interstate highways. Wider adoption of toll roads and other facilities covered by user fees would amount, to some extent, to the privatization of America’s infrastructure.
Private sector funding

That’s controversial, since many citizens aren’t happy with the idea of for-profit entities funding roads, airports, tunnels, and mass-transit systems meant to help the general public get around. But the traditional way of paying for infrastructure, through tax revenue, has left thousands of needed repairs unfunded. The American Society of Civil Engineers, for instance, says the nation’s infrastructure needs $3.6 trillion worth of work by 2020. The federal government only spends about $100 billion a year on infrastructure, with states and cities spending another $320 billion or so. That suggests a $2 trillion gap during the next four years.

Fans of private funding for infrastructure argue that projects would be selected with less political interference (and fewer “bridges to nowhere”), along with a stronger focus on projects likely to return the best bang for the buck. Private-sector interests might also be able to control costs better, since there’d be more profit if they do. Governments would still have an oversight role, in setting maximum tolls or user fees, for instance, and making sure private owners or investor groups didn’t skimp on maintenance.
View photos

The Trump plan would provide funding for riskier and costlier projects that government might have difficulty funding on its own these days, especially with many state budgets hamstrung by the soaring cost of pensions and retiree healthcare. These would be big, complex projects such as a new tunnel beneath the Hudson River from New York to New Jersey, high-speed rail in California or the Federal Aviation Administration’s next-generation air-traffic-control system. More routine projects, such as ongoing funding for existing highway or utility systems, don’t need radical new sources of money.

[Gov Bean Counter]

Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my ...

[Taxcontrol]

For those that are Trump supporters:

Please explain to me how spending more than a liberal makes you a conservative? :huh?:

[Frank Cannon]

For those that are Trump supporters:

Please explain to me how spending more than a liberal makes you a conservative? :huh?:

There is dead silence from the Trumpettes at this new proposal. You would think they would be here touting it's brilliance. Funny.

[mirraflake]

For those that are Trump supporters:

Please explain to me how spending more than a liberal makes you a conservative? :huh?:

@Taxcontrol   @Gov Bean Counter

I guess if you read the article and not kneejerk spout off from just the headline you would see how wrong you both are and what Trump wants to do.

[guitar4jesus]

[sinkspur]

How is this significantly different from using government bonds to finance these projects?

[ABX]

@Taxcontrol   @Gov Bean Counter

I guess if you read the article and not kneejerk spout off from just the headline you would see how wrong you both are and what Trump wants to do.

You are correct. The article describes what is basically a Solyndra type of cronyist program. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
(of course, it is still laughable to say that increase in spending won't raise taxes as we can see historically from similar claims).

[roamer_1]

Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my ...

Yep. It's like poopin' your pants without getting your underwear dirty... Magic.

[Frank Cannon]

That's what I envisioned too.....just like when Obama talked about this in '08.

[guitar4jesus]

That's what I envisioned too.....just like when Obama talked about this in '08.

Aye.

[sinkspur]

You are correct. The article describes what is basically a Solyndra type of cronyist program. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
(of course, it is still laughable to say that increase in spending won't raise taxes as we can see historically from similar claims).

Yep.  The 82% tax credit would mean $136 billion added to the deficit.    And that's free money to the investors, likely received in the first year.  No other investment returns this kind of cash in one year.

The feds are essentially doubling the amount of money currently spent on infrastructure through the tax credit.

[geronl]

There is dead silence from the Trumpettes at this new proposal. You would think they would be here touting it's brilliance. Funny.

National Trump Workers Party

[GrouchoTex]

Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my ...

@Gov Bean Counter
Everyday brings another Bullwinkle moment.
Why not?
We have Commander McBrag running for President.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Yep. It's like poopin' your pants without getting your underwear dirty... Magic.

You came *that* close to owing me a new keyboard.

[Oceander]

Yep. It's like poopin' your pants without getting your underwear dirty... Magic.

@roamer_1
You owe me a new cup of coffee and cleaning the pants and shirt I just spilt the old cup all over!! 

[ABX]

National Trump Workers Party

I wonder if I can float that on twitter and other sites and get them to pick it up.

Have you noticed the thing going around Facebook where they are being trolled? They are all being told to wear red to the polls and go in large groups.  The posts have example pictures of this. What people don't realize is that they are being shown Communist Party protest marches around Asia in those pictures and encouraged to emulate them.

Basically, whowever is trolling them is getting them to imitate Communists.



Even WND picked it up..
http://www.wnd.com/2016/09/trump-army-planning-to-flood-polling-stations-with-red/

[Oceander]

I wonder if I can float that on twitter and other sites and get them to pick it up.

Have you noticed the thing going around Facebook where they are being trolled? They are all being told to wear red to the polls and go in large groups.  The posts have example pictures of this. What people don't realize is that they are being shown Communist Party protest marches around Asia in those pictures and encouraged to emulate them.

Basically, whowever is trolling them is getting them to imitate Communists.



Even WND picked it up..
http://www.wnd.com/2016/09/trump-army-planning-to-flood-polling-stations-with-red/

And then pic of them will be used to claim that American people support communism. 

[Idaho_Cowboy]

And then pic of them will be used to claim that American people support communism.

Hey whatever is popular. That's what populist do...

[geronl]

I wonder if I can float that on twitter and other sites and get them to pick it up.

Have you noticed the thing going around Facebook where they are being trolled? They are all being told to wear red to the polls and go in large groups.  The posts have example pictures of this. What people don't realize is that they are being shown Communist Party protest marches around Asia in those pictures and encouraged to emulate them.

lol.

I could made a bundle selling them armbands...

[ABX]

Hey whatever is popular. That's what populist do...

Hey, and Karl Marx claimed to be for the blue collar working man (OK, not in those exact words, that's the western, modern language of it but you get the idea).

[WhatWouldReaganDo]

National Trump Workers Party

And some say he's not really a Republican...

Trump's a Weimar Republican.

[ABX]

And some say he's not really a Republican...

Trump's a Weimar Republican.

Actually the Weimar Republic tried to oppose the National Socialists and Communists.
They tried to create a represenative republic similar to our own, and even based on it in many ways. 

Unfortunately, they were pushed out by the populist National Socialists.

[rodamala]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDOI0cq6GZM

[Night Hides Not]

And then pic of them will be used to claim that American people support communism.

Is communism that different from crony capitalism, from an economic standpoint?

Trump should go all in and ask for $2 Trillion. Remember how Krugman said Obama's $800 billion wasn't enough?

Trump is Mr. Thompson, touting the "John Galt Plan for Peace, Prosperity, and Profit":

“The John Galt plan will reconcile all conflicts. It will protect the property of the rich and give a greater share to the poor. It will cut down the burden of your taxes and provide you with more government benefits. It will lower prices and raise wages. It will give more freedom to the individual and strengthen the bonds of collective obligations. It will combine the efficiency of free enterprise with the generosity of a planned economy.”

“And I say to you: kick them in the teeth, all those doubters… Tomorrow is here today! With three meals a day for everyone on earth, with a car in every garage, and with electric power given free, produced by some sort of a motor the like of which we’ve never seen!”

Substitute "Donald Trump" for "John Galt", and throw in a trillion bucks for infrastructure...