CNN Highlights How Difficult It Would Be To Pay For Trump's Infrastructure Privatization Scheme 

From the November 22 edtion of CNN's New Day:

Video file

ALISYN CAMEROTA (CO-HOST): Why do Republicans love this $1 trillion infrastructure plan when they hated President Obama's infrastructure stimulus plan? 

CHRISTINE ROMANS: I'm not sure they all love this infrastructure plan. They want to make sure, I think, that it's paid for, it's really paid for. So, there's some controversy on how this is going to look. Let's talk about what it is they want to do here, first. Donald Trump -- we don't have a blueprint, per se, pun intended, but we do know that Donald Trump wants to spend about a trillion dollars over ten years. And here's how that stacks up. Hillary Clinton's plan, on the campaign trail, was $275 billion over five years. And the American Society of CivilEngineers says we got a lot of stuff to fix. They say we need to spend almost $4 trillion by 2020. There is a lot to do. 

CHRIS CUOMO (CO-HOST): But a big distinguishing characteristic is that Clinton was going to do the ​normal funding mechanism, which a lot of GOP doesn't like. Which is raising taxes or floating debt to make it happen. Trump has a different idea of how to do it that essentially will privatize a lot of our nation's infrastructure, and that's causing some controversy too. It's complicated. How did you explain it?

ROMANS: It's complicated, and it's sort of creative. So, let's look at what needs to be done first. Where will all this money be invested before we get to it? This is the traditional stuff, right? Think La Guardia Airport. Airports, air traffic control systems -- creaky, out of date. A long-term clean water project, energy pipelines and coal facilities. Remember those coal jobs? Security infrastructure. You just heard him in that video last night talking about protecting against cyber attacks against America's infrastructure. That could be technology spending that is infrastructure spending, not necessarily a shovel in the ground. 

[...]

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. This is needed. It's hard to argue against it. But it's just who pays for it, and how does it get done? And remember, as President Obama famously said when he failed, basically, at the infrastructure building, “Well, the shovel-ready projects weren't as shovel ready as I thought.” So what's different now? 

ROMANS: And that's interesting because I was hearing from CEOs last week that there are still not as many shovel-ready projects as you would think. 

[...] 

ROMANS: This is all going to have to go through Congress, so Donald Trump is going to have a delicate dance here. I'll tell you once other thing that CEOs are saying to me, they like the idea of spending [on] infrastructure, it's one of the reasons why the stock market is so high right now. But they're worried there aren't enough workers for some of these: 4.9 percent unemployment. A trillion dollars over ten years. You're talking about hundreds of thousands of people have to be put to work,and they're worried they can't find the people. 

Previously:

Experts Fear Trump Policies May Cause Economic Slowdown

Watch CNN's Damning Comparison Of Trump And Clinton Tax Plans

CNN Fact-Check: Trump's Economic Plan Seems “Designed For Higher-Income, More Affluent Families”