Trump Promises to Rebuild America: Roads, Rails, Runways!

President Donald Trump promised a massive rebuilding of America’s infrastructure in a speech at the Department of Transportation on Friday.

“I was not elected to continue a failed system, I was elected to change it,” Trump declared. “It’s time to start building our country with American workers and with American iron and aluminum and steel,” he said. “It’s time to put up soaring new infrastructure that inspires pride in our people and our towns.”

“For too long America has poured trillions and billions of dollars into rebuilding foreign countries while allowing our own country — the country that we love — and its infrastructure to fall into a state of total disrepair,” said the president.

[lz_ndn video=32532861]

“We have structurally deficient bridges, clogged roads, crumbling dams and locks, our rivers are in trouble, our railways are aging, and chronic traffic that slows commerce and diminishes our citizens’ quality of life,” he said. “Instead of rebuilding our country, Washington has spent decades building a dense thicket of rules, regulations, and red tape.”

President Trump made clear his intent to remove that thicket.

“It is time at last to put America first. Americans deserve the best infrastructure anywhere in the world. They deserve roads and bridges that are safe to travel, and pipes that deliver clean water into their homes,” Trump said. “They deserve lanes of commerce that get people and products where they need to go on time.”

“No longer can we allow these rules and regulations to tie down our economy, chain up our prosperity, and sap our great American spirit. That is why we will lift these restrictions and unleash the full potential of the United States of America,” Trump promised.

Trump described a two-prong approach to rebuilding American infrastructure consisting of: one, significant regulatory reform, and two, investment.

“We will get rid of the redundancy and duplication that wastes your time and your money,” the president said. “Our goal is to give you one point of contact to deliver one decision, yes or no, for the entire federal government, and to deliver that decision quickly.”

“To do this we are setting up a new council to help project managers navigate the bureaucratic maze,” Trump announced. “This council will make sure that every federal agency that is consistently delaying projects by missing deadlines will face tough new penalties. We will hold the bureaucracy accountable.”

“We are also creating a new office in the Council of Environmental Quality, to root out inefficiency, clarify lines of authority, and streamline federal and state and local procedures so that communities can modernize their aging infrastructure without fear of outdated federal rules getting in their way,” Trump said.

“This massive permit reform … doesn’t sound glamorous … but it’s so important,” Trump said. But “it’s only the first step in renewing Americans’ roads, rails, runways and rivers. As I discussed in Ohio recently, my new vision for American infrastructure will generate $1 trillion dollars in infrastructure investment,” Trump added, referring to the 2018 budget’s “Infrastructure Initiative.”

[lz_related_box id=”806866″]

The initiative will see the government invest $200 billion and introduce a series of tax breaks designed to make investing in American infrastructure attractive to private businesses. Along with additional state and local contributions, the president has set a target of $1 trillion in investment.

“We will pour new concrete, lay new brick, and watch new sparks light our factories, as we forge metal from the furnaces of our Rust Belt and our beloved heartland,” said Trump. “We will put new American steel into the spine of our country. American workers will construct gleaming new lanes of commerce across our landscape,” he said.

“They will build these monuments from coast to coast and from city to city, and with these new roads, bridges, airports and seaports, we will embark on a wonderful new journey into a bright and glorious future,” said the president. “We will build again, we will grow again, we will thrive again, and we will make America great again.”