PART 1: Inside the Infrastructure plan - what it would mean for Florida
Bottom Line: Coming out of the State of the Union address President Trump had a lot of political momentum and a 2018 agenda setup by the widely positive reception of the address. An average of 73% of Americans who viewed the State of the Union had a positive response to the address. The top three agenda items supported by viewers as laid out by the President?
Infrastructure
DACA/Immigration reform
Military/Defense spending
What's notable is the similarities between last year's top three and this year's list. Last year the top three after the President's initial speech before a joint session of Congress where: Healthcare reform, tax reform and the Supreme Court vacancy. Last year we saw the SCOTUS opening quickly addressed and the trial and tribulations that eventually led to the failures on comprehensive healthcare reform but the eventual tax reform that included an end to the individual mandate. This year's top three has already taken on a similar feel. The number three priority has already been addressed by the budget deal as the President got the defense spending he wanted. Additionally, DACA has a natural deadline, March 5th, for the months long negotiations to create potential resolution. That leaves us with infrastructure to address now. So, let's set the stage...
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, our nation's infrastructure requires trillions of dollars of investment to pull it up to "A" status across the country. There are definitely very specific differences from state to state. In Florida our infrastructure ranks as a "C". If that doesn't sound especially positive - we're actually the 7th best state nationally for overall infrastructure (which puts into perspective how extensive the problems are elsewhere). The President's plan, which will be released today, will highlight a $1.5 trillion plan (about half of the estimate to get the US to A status) which will emphasize public-private partnerships, states investing more heavily in their own infrastructure and federal dollars to help juice the process. The outline works like this:
$200 billion in Federal incentives made available for state and local governments to tap into. For every four dollars spent at the state and local level one federal dollar will be provided with no strings attached. This should provide additional incentive to prioritize infrastructure at state houses with increased accountability with federal resources. In part two we'll look at Florida's specific needs.