Trump, Dems meet on infrastructure
Sides work on start of $2 trillion package
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Democratic congressional leaders carved out the beginnings of an infrastructure package with a price tag of $2 trillion on Tuesday.
After the 90-minute meeting, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had requested the meeting, told reporters both sides agreed the infrastructure package would be “big and bold.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Trump agreed to meet again in three weeks, at which time the president would “present his ideas” on how to fund the measure. Without the president’s imprimatur, Schumer noted, “it’ll be very hard to get the Senate to go along.”
The White House confirmed the mutual spirit of goodwill when press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement, “The United States has not come even close to properly investing in infrastructure for many years, foolishly prioritizing the interests of other countries over our own. We have to invest in this country’s future and bring our infrastructure to a level better than it has ever been before.”
The amount of money is so big, Adie Tomer of the Brookings Institution told the Review-journal, “What they unwittingly announced today is another New Deal, like FDR’S New Deal, that’s how big this would be.”
While Democrats have been pushing for a rollback of parts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed in 2017, an increase in the gas tax or a combination of the two, the White House generally has balked at raising taxes.
The deficit-wary Center for a Responsible Federal Budget believes that the nation’s crumbling infrastructure is in such need of repair that spending now and paying for it later still could be “pro-growth” — although not funding these improvements could “shrink the economy.”
Last year Trump proposed a package that would have provided $200 billion in seed money for what the administration said would spur as much as $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investment thanks to a streamlined permitting process. Trump was not particularly enthusiastic about the proposal, which went nowhere.
Pelosi stressed that Democrats came to the White House “to do something for the American people,” not criticize Trump.
From all appearances, the Cabinet Room sit-down, also attended by five other House and Senate Democrats, lacked both drama and rancor. Democrats left smiling. The White House sent out a nice statement afterward.
“In previous meetings the president has said, if these investigations continue, I can’t work with you,” Schumer told reporters. “He didn’t bring it up. I believe that we can do both at once.”
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or at 202-662-7391. Follow @Debrajsaunders on Twitter.