Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says Trump's $1 trillion infrastructure plan is a big tax giveaway to the rich. He says non-union big Wall Street "mega-builders" will be the main beneficiaries and he says you and I will pay through the nose for it.
"What Donald Trump is proposing is nothing more than a huge tax giveaway for the rich. Rather than tax the wealthy and using the money to fix our dangerously outdated roads, bridges, airports, water systems Trump wants to give rich developers and Wall Street investors tax credits to encourage them to do it."
Reich says that means taxpayers will pay twice while ending up with new tolls and fees for the new infrastructure. And he says smaller, less profitable bridges and roads might not get fixed since there won't be enough money in them for Wall Street.
"We'd be turning over public roads and bridges to private corporations who will charge us expensive tolls and earn big profits. These tolls will be set high in order to satisfy the profit margins demanded by elite Wall Street developers.
So essentially we pay twice. Once when we subsidize the developers and investors with our tax dollars and then secondly when pay the tolls and user fees that also go into their pockets.
To really make America great again we need more and better infrastructure that's for the public, not for big developers and investors. And the only way we get that is if corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes."