Trump, Clinton Tout Infrastructure Spending, With Few Details

Law 360 discusses the presidential candidates' positions on infastruture with Marc Scribner. 

Trump to spur economic growth with increased infrastructure investment have stoked optimism that the candidates will prioritize fixing the nation’s crumbling roads, bridges and highways. But experts say a shortage of specifics from the presidential hopefuls casts doubt on whether they’ll make good on their promises.

On the campaign trail, both candidates have touted heavily investing in infrastructure. Clinton, the Democratic nominee, has said she’ll invest $275 billion over five years on infrastructure, while Trump, the Republican nominee, is advocating for investing an amount that’s at least “double” what Clinton proposed.

“We have Secretary Clinton’s rhetoric and recycled platitudes on the infrastructure side, but with Mr. Trump, it’s hard to say what he’s actually trying to say because there’s so little there,” said Marc Scribner, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank. “Neither of them are bringing anything new or innovative to the table. What I suspect will be the result is very little will change in terms of the status quo.”

Optimism aside, the problems surrounding what have been years of inadequate funding for transportation projects like mass transit and highway repairs aren’t entirely fixable at the federal level, which ties up the purse strings for things like maintenance and only allocates money for capital improvement projects, experts say.

“You have candidates supposedly fighting to fix the infrastructure crisis, but what they’re not saying is unless you have Congress rewrite federal aid funding that’s been in place for almost a century, I don’t think we're going to get much out of this,” Scribner said.

Read the full article at Law 360.