Trump’s main goal in the State of the Union speech was to sound serious and presidential. Did he succeed? I don’t think so – I found the fear-mongering over immigrant crime disgusting. But mostly I don’t care. I’ve never seen much merit in the theater-criticism school of political punditry.
What matters is the substance, of which, let’s be honest, there usually isn’t much in a SOTU. Still, Trump was trying to sound as if he was offering serious new policy initiatives, notably on infrastructure.
So let’s be clear: while we desperately need new investment in public capital, Trump’s proposal – Trumpfrastructure? – isn’t remotely serious. At best, it would be a trivial sum of money pretending to be something big. At worst, it would amount to an orgy of crony capitalism, privatizing public assets while generating little new investment.
So, what’s being sold here? Trump gave a big number, $1.5 trillion. But a leaked draft of the plan says that it will involve only $200 billion of federal money. The rest is supposed to be induced spending from private investors. That’s quite a trick. How does it work?
