Trump wants $1.5T infrastructure spending boost, cuts to red tape

The White House will unveil a plan to increase infrastructure spending by $1.5 trillion that relies heavily on state and local governments, a senior administration official revealed Sunday.

The plan, which the administration is set to announce officially on Monday, also would cut the permitting process for new projects from ten years to two years and boost investment for projects in rural America -- including transportation, broadband, water, waste, power, flood management and ports -- by $50 billion in a bid to address criticism from some Republican senators that the Trump administration's initial emphasis on public-private partnerships would do little to help rural, traditionally GOP-leaning states.

Just $200 billion of the proposed spending would be in federal dollars, which the official said would come from "reductions in other areas of the budget." Half of that amount would go to grants for transportation, water, flood control, cleanup at some of the country's most polluted sites and other projects.States, local governments and other project sponsors could use the grants -- which administration officials view as incentives -- for no more than 20 percent of the cost. Transit agencies generally count on the federal government for half the cost of major construction projects, and federal dollars can make up as much as 80 percent of some highway projects.