Senate Republicans just quietly ditched one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises

With scandals, investigations, staff defections, guns, budget battles and more dragging his administration down, President Trump has been counting on a big legislative victory for his $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan to provide him with the big win he desperately wants before voters go to the polls in the November midterm elections.

Instead, it appears Trump can add infrastructure to the long list of things that won’t get done this year, and may never get done as he has proposed it.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) says that it will be tough to pass an infrastructure bill by the end of this year “because lawmakers are facing a host of other priorities,” reports Politico.

“I think it’s gonna be hard,” Cornyn told reporters, “because we have so many other things to do and we don’t have much time.”

It may seem odd that eight months isn’t much time but the big problem is not just writing a bill but finding the $200 billion that will be required to finance it under Trump’s plan.

Trump calls his proposal a public-private partnership because he wants the federal government to put up $200 million, and use it to leverage state and local governments, and private investors to put up the other $1.3 trillion needed to build roads, repair bridges, update the power grid and the many, many other badly needed items and fixes.

To pass, the infrastructure plan would likely need at least some Democratic support, as well as keeping all the Republicans on board, and that too is not assured.

Democrats have complained that the $200 billion is not nearly enough of a contribution from the government to get the job done, especially when it comes to things like rural projects that big investors may resist because it won’t provide them with enough of a return on their money. 

The Democrats are also unhappy that Trump wants to stuff the bill with cuts in regulations that set standards for the projects, how money is to be spent and tracked and much more, to speed up the process.