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Hello, fellow Americans just now noticing that Donald Trump's promise to spend "one trillion dollars" on American infrastructure seems noticeably absent from his actual budget plans. Allow me to explain this conundrum: He. Was. Lying.
[A]ny prospects for cooperation on that front seemed to largely evaporate this week, when Trump released a budget proposal that included deep cuts to existing infrastructure programs — angering Democrats and prompting many to question the president’s commitment to an issue he trumpeted as a candidate.
Well, duh. At this point there's no possible pundit take on things that should not begin and end with "because Donald Trump lies." Anyone trying to sell you anything different should be treated with suspicion, and just to be safe, contempt. Even back when he was supposedly promising to spend "one trillion dollars," a cursory glance at the flimsy excuse for a plan showed nothing of the sort. It was smoke and mirrors from the beginning, and anyone who said otherwise is themselves a crook.
Trump’s budget proposes $200 billion in new federal spending on infrastructure over the next decade, an amount his administration argues will be sufficient to spur a promised $1 trillion in new investments once new spending by the private sector and state and local governments are factored in.
It was always this same ephemeral plan of giving a fraction much, much less than "one trillion dollars" to infrastructure programs and presuming the free market would then use that money to build private toll roads, toll bridges, toll ferries and toll airport parking lots worth a bajillion dollars more, and which you, dear commoner, could partake of for a small or large fee. As far as replacing "infrastructure" like failing sewer lines or lead water pipes, that was never in the picture because private companies don't want to own those. Oh, and by the way even the supposed $200 billion was a sham. The real number isn’t $200 billion. The real number is zero.
But Democrats, who want the federal government to spend much more on infrastructure, say the cuts to existing programs — including federal funding for local transit projects — far outstrip the proposed new spending. [...]Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), whose office released an analysis citing $206 billion in proposed cuts to existing programs, took to the Senate floor on Wednesday [...]
This is lazy damn writing. "Democrats say" the budget cuts $206 billion which is by the way more than $200 billion is, one would think, a checkable thing. It should not be the task of Democrats to add numbers together so that nobody from our national newspapers has to.
All right, so there is no new investment. The "one trillion dollars" was never happening, even back when the plan was only a nebulous stub, and now we learn that "one trillion dollars" is, in fact, bupkis. This is the same administration that is defending a two trillion dollar math error in their budget, so it should come as no surprise that some half-literate cretin working from under a White House desk still swears up and down that the money-farting unicorns will indeed ride across the sunny American skies, so long as you truly believe in them.
A six-page “fact sheet” released along with the budget this week — the most detailed description of the initiative to date — argues the federal government should be seeking to better “leverage” its dollars to spur more private investment and, that in many cases, state and local governments are better equipped to move forward on their own.
So it's the same garbage they're selling for everything else. Cut the money, tell the states they're on their own, and the privatization fairies will show up to take care of the rest.
“Our budget intends to dedicate $200 billion in federal funding to improve infrastructure but also to re-engineer the way our programs work to maximize co-investment from state, local and private parties and ensure that we can stretch all those dollars further by eliminating red tape,” said John Czwartacki, communications director for the Office of Management and Budget.
The number of cheap, gibberish-laden buzzwords needed to cantilever that sentence from beginning to precarious end could reach across the Mississippi. But you wouldn't want to drive on them.
The budget formally unveiled Tuesday does not spell out how the $200 billion proposed by Trump would be dispersed. It suggests a gradual ramp-up in the new spending, with only $5 billion proposed for the coming fiscal year.
Garbage! Garbage, all the way down! Dishonest in the beginning, vague in the middle, crooked at the end! The only way you could make the "one trillion dollar" infrastructure plan any more extravagantly crooked is to simply start selling off America's "infrastructure" to the highest bidder, pocket the cash, and get the hell out of Dodge before the real bill comes due.
The administration is also contemplating privatizing some public assets, such as airports, bridges and highway rest stops, to generate funds to build new projects.
So there you go, then. It was all crooked from the beginning, and anyone who listened seriously to any of it, knowing what we all know about the pathological liar and his daily, hourly, and by-the-minute lies, needs to have an infrastructure project to cement over the hole in their head. Good God, people, how many times can the man play you before you get tired of getting played. There is no good side to Team Trump, they're just a set of common thieves borrowing ideas from C-list economic loons whose ideas were proven wrong decades ago. The man and his team will never, ever stumble upon doing a good thing, not even by accident.
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