The clearest sign of the hollowness of Mr. Trump’s trillion-dollar promise came in the budget released last month. It ends subsidies for Amtrak’s long-distance train service, which will hurt the most in the parts of the country Mr. Trump promised to help. It gets rid of popular federal transportation programs like “Tiger” grants that provide money to cities and states to repair and expand highways, bridges and transit systems. Many of the programs Mr. Trump would cut were authorized by Congress with large bipartisan majorities.
These cuts will have real consequences. Even if Congress disregards the budget and appropriates funds, the administration can use its discretionary power to withhold all or part of them. For example, the budget blueprint says the Department of Transportation will decide not to award new federal grants authorized by Congress for transit programs, but instead ask “localities that use and benefit from these localized projects” to foot the bill.
