As budget debates continue in Washington, will President Donald Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan be realized or will it fall through? The infrastructure issue is one which President Obama’s administration attempted to address too.
Former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was just interviewed on the National Journal about this and he also discussed the problem in his book, Seeking Bipartisanship:
When the new president [Obama] took office, most everyone accepted the need for action on transportation. They knew where the bad roads were. They knew about bad bridges that needed to be fixed. They knew we suffered with outdated transit systems. But we could never figure out a way to pay for the fixes. The administration would not lobby for an increase in the gas tax when it had the votes. Republicans in the House would have blocked the increase once they regained control of the House. The infrastructure bank never gained traction, although it could have supplemented the Highway Trust Fund. We never figured out how to pay for a transportation bill that matched the president’s rhetoric.
Politico has predicted that President Trump’s “hopes for a ‘very bipartisan’ bill are running into the same kinds of political forces that torpedoed the Obamacare repeal.”
Why is bipartisanship so elusive? Secretary LaHood’s book provides a rare inside account of how politics work in Washington. Order Seeking Bipartisanship on Amazon today for this fascinating read into the everyday life of Washington politics.
Title: Seeking Bipartisanship: My Life in Politics
Editors: Ray LaHood with Frank H. Mackaman
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 9781604979053
360 pp. | 2015 | Paperback & E-book
Book Webpage: http://www.cambriapress.com/books/9781604979053.cfm