In the recently released budget that President Donald Trump proposed there are cuts to or elimination of a number of key infrastructure programs even though he vowed repeatedly to increase spending for roads, utilities along with other important facilities.
The budget director for Trump said Trump’s administration would uphold the pledge the president made for $1 trillion in infrastructure spending through an infrastructure package that was not specified and would be released at a later date.
However, the cuts that were included in the outlined budget on Thursday received rebukes from lawmakers and advocates for infrastructure who have said hypocrisy existed with Trump.
Mick Mulvaney the budget director for the White House acknowledged the preliminary budget could appear to be in contradiction to what Trump said during his campaign and as president related to additional spending for infrastructure. However, that was intentional on Trump’s part, said Mulvaney.
The budget director said the White House was targeting programs that were inefficient and would shift funds to other more efficient programs related to infrastructure at a later date.
No details were provided by the White House related to its package on infrastructure. Trump touted building more infrastructure with private sector and government money to minimize the cost to the public.
However, a group that represents rural area water utilities said that partnerships that are public-private will not work, and assailed the proposal of Trump to eliminate a program of $500 million annually that helps rural communities construct as well as improve water, trash, street-drainage and sewer systems.
The group said that this was a demonstration of how blind the White House was to rural constituency and its lack of knowledge of what is most effective in the funding of most of the country’s water and wastewater infrastructure.
The group as well as other organizations say the federal programs that are currently operating are underfunded by nevertheless effective.
Trump’s proposed budget cuts would put into jeopardy 56 projects of public transit in the development stages.
In February, Trump said he would be proposing a measure that would trigger infrastructure spending of $1 trillion by the private and public sectors, though some Washington lawmakers doubted investors would finance projects for infrastructure.
