Infrastructure and Economic Development

Are you hearing what I am hearing? This is something I have been begging to hear for 30 years. In the open meeting today at the White House regarding Infrastructure and Economic Development, we are hearing from Governor after Governor—great stories especially from the governors of NM, WI, SC, who have all stated that they will be using their Vo-Tech systems to train the employees in advance of the plant sites being even completed. This is what States do and Oklahoma is the premier such program in the USA. OK Vo-Tech sets up sites, equipment, systems etc. and train plant hires to hit the ground running when the plant doors open. The Governor of Wisconsin told of 13,000 direct jobs at their new plant [Foxconn] being trained right now. I speak of economic and employment multipliers quite often. In this case, WI projects another 22,000 indirect jobs from this investment. The economic multipliers can generate a factor of 4-5 per each dollar of direct investment. SC of course landed that $350 Billion plant from iPhone. There will be thousands of new direct jobs, also with economic/ employment multipliers. SC also announced major plants by BMW, Volvo and Samsung.
Another crucial factor that I am hearing is the state permitting problem for major construction projects for infrastructure. Remember these words: Prevailing Wage Law [PWL]. THAT is THE problem. The WH infrastructure plan will leverage federal dollars in the amount of $200 Billion with state and private sector dollars for a total investment of $1.5 Trillion. The most important factor is that the WH will demand that permitting time to be cut from 15-17 years to 2 years and maybe get it down in finality to 1 year. Here’s the catch: If you can’t get your permitting times down to that 2 year cycle, you will not be sharing in the federal funding. Your Fed funds will simply go back into the pool for states that can comply.
Here are a few of the states that will not be able to comply, due to their ridiculous permitting systems [PWL]: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and likely Maryland. These states should look quite familiar to you, pursuant to the 2016 election. Too bad! Elections have consequences. Welcome to Washington! You might say, he needs those states. No, firstly, he will never get them and the Electoral College says he does not need them this election past nor in 2020.
Just as importantly, what the WH proposes earmarks an amount certain for rural infrastructure development, including broadband infrastructure so they are no longer left out.
BRILLIANT! By the way, as you might expect from someone who has been involved in permitting and construction project finance, Trump already knows how he is going to pay for it. I have been waiting for 3 decades to finally have someone in the WH who understands this. It is great to have an adult in the WH for a change.