WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's administration wants to commit $200 billion on a variety of risky but potentially "transformative" infrastructure projects, such as satellite networks to provide rural broadband, new launchpads for private rockets, and "augmented reality" technologies to visualize and manage urban traffic congestion, a senior official said Wednesday.
The administration "is already prepared with ideas" for "surgically targeted" projects, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told senators as part of a broad, multiagency push for momentum on a 10-year, $200 billion infrastructure proposal facing head winds on Capitol.
Ross was joined by the secretaries of transportation, agriculture, energy and labor for testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, and offered new details on "bold and innovative projects ... that would not otherwise attract private investment without federal incentives because of the risk."
But the phalanx of Cabinet chiefs did not elaborate on how the president's team would pay for its infrastructure aspirations. Ross, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and others repeated their refrain that the administration would rely on states, localities and private companies to come up with $1.3 trillion more to make a dent in the nation's multitrillion-dollar infrastructure needs.
Sen. John Thune, S.D., the third-ranking Republican leader in the Senate, signaled that the far-reaching program envisioned by administration leaders butts against tough realities in Congress.
"Unless someone's willing to bite the bullet and come up with a new funding source, there are limitations to what we will be able to do," Thune said.
He said his colleagues had in recent years identified several "offsets" to pay for previous infrastructure needs. Those included relying on a budget maneuver to help keep the nation's Highway Trust Fund afloat.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have proposed funding $1 trillion in infrastructure projects by reversing some of last year's tax cuts and jettisoning a tax break benefiting investment managers. But the idea of undoing what many Republicans see as a crowning achievement was rejected by each secretary.
Still, Thune said the administration, and Trump himself, would probably need to get behind specific new revenue to make things happen.
"If they really want to do the scale of what they're talking about doing, then at some point they're probably going to have to get behind some form of pay-fors. And I think it's going to take the president to do that," Thune said.
Trump privately voiced support in a meeting with members of Congress last month for an increase of 25 cents to the 18.4-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax. The levy was last raised in 1993. Business groups back the move, though conservative members have balked and administration officials have sought to avoid being pinned down on the issue.
There also is some concern among advocates for highway and transit projects that Trump could seek to use a gas-tax increase to fund his broader infrastructure initiative rather than to shore up the Highway Trust Fund, which is facing a shortfall of more than $120 billion.
A Section on 03/15/2018