$1 Trillion in New Infrastructure Is Realistic, If Spent Correctly

According to a recent Boston Globe article by Jeffrey Sachs,

A builder-president could indeed restore vitality to the US economy and put millions to work in the process. All the major candidates in this campaign cycle pledged a substantial effort to build America’s infrastructure. Indeed, Trump suggested a hefty price tag of $1 trillion, which is a realistic sum and target for the coming years (roughly 1 percent of national income per year if carried out over 5 years).

How should these funds be spent? The key to success in rebuilding America can be summarized in three words: smart, fair, and sustainable.

Smart infrastructure means to look forward to deploy the best of cutting-edge technology. Our power grids should be smart in economizing on energy use and in incorporating distributed sources (such as wind and solar power) into the grid. Our transport grids should be smart in enabling self-driving electric vehicles within our cities and 21st century high-speed rail between them.

Fair infrastructure starts with Trump’s pledge to rebuild the inner cities. Such a pledge should include affordable housing; efficient transport services for low-income communities; the cleanup of urban toxic dumps; and ensuring safe water for all Americans.

Sustainable infrastructure means acknowledging and anticipating the dire environmental threats facing America’s cities and infrastructure. The collapse of the New Orleans levees had been long predicted by scientists and engineers before Hurricane Katrina. The flooding of New York City had been long predicted before Hurricane Sandy. The risks ahead to the United States in the event of unchecked climate change can be found in countless scientific and policy studies, such as the Risky Business Project and the National Climate Assessment.

Much could go wrong in an undirected building boom that is not smart, fair, and sustainable. Trump’s campaign pledges to restore the Keystone XL Pipeline and US coal production are cases in point. Investing in a boom in fossil fuels would simply be an expensive dead end. Such projects will inevitably be closed soon after they are completed, if not in a Trump administration then in the ones that follow. They are simply untenable environmentally, no matter what their lobbyists assert.