Gateway, the infrastructure project Trump hates so much he threatened a shutdown, explained
Trump is a vile spoiled brat!
Gateway, the infrastructure project Trump hates so much he threatened a shutdown, explained
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/22/17146652/gateway-infrastructure-tunnel-trump-shutdown-explained
How Trump undermined one of the nation’s most critical infrastructure projects.
By Tara Golshan Mar 22, 2018, 2:10pm EDT
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Trump in a hard hat. Mark Lyons/Getty Images
It’s always infrastructure week in President Donald Trump’s White House. So when Trump threatened to shut down the government over an infrastructure project in his home state, it threw Congress for a loop.
Trump’s refusal to sign a spending bill with funding for the Gateway project, a $30 billion commuter rail, bridge, and tunnel proposal connecting New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River — which advocates call one of the nation’s most “critical infrastructure” projects — was one of the major hang-ups in Congress’s last-minute negotiations over government spending this week.
Trump, who has promised to fix the country’s “crumbling” bridges and roads with “the biggest and boldest infrastructure investment in American history,” has repeatedly and systematically undermined Gateway’s urgency. Why? Republican lawmakers suspect it’s because of an ongoing feud with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, one of the project’s fiercest advocates.
Now, as lawmakers scramble to pass a spending bill to keep the government open past March 23, they’ve had to leave out the bipartisan $900 million infrastructure spending proposal for Gateway. Instead, the spending bill will include as much as $446 million through Amtrak, and more in federal grants that do not require the Department of Transportation’s stamp of approval, that can go toward Gateway.
According to reporting from Bloomberg, Amtrak estimates it will be able to contribute $388 million to building Gateway. Republicans are telling Trump that he now has more control over the funding.
Infrastructure has long been hailed as a policy area ripe for bipartisan legislating. But Trump has made it clear his big talk on infrastructure might be just that.
What is the Gateway Project?.....................