The New York Times uncovers the FACT that Trump & Co. is NOT moving ahead with construction projects FUNDED BY Congress across the country to be approved and go forward….
This is NOT just Democratic …
This is cities and states everywhere….
As in other areas ?
Trump and Company do NOT seem to want make America ‘Great’…
They seem to want to ignore and cut the United States into ‘bits and pieces’ ……
I’ve said this over and OVER here….
The next America President, which I assume WILL BE a Democrat….
Is gonna spend a TON of time putting things back together again following four years of evil doing minions that have had NO regard for America’s ‘Well Being’….
Oh?
These projects WHEN funded WILL create THOUSANDS of jobs helping the Economy, eh?
For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit. The grants, sometimes in the billions of dollars, have funded new railroad tracks, train stations and roads rebuilt for modern bus service. Today, they’re funding extensions of the Second Avenue Subway in New York and the Red Line in Chicago, as well as the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and bus infrastructure in Indianapolis and San Antonio.
But since President Trump returned to office, the Federal Transit Administration has not signed a single new agreement under the program, known as Capital Investment Grants. Large projects ready to enter the final phase of the program’s yearslong pipeline have stalled there. The administration also tried halting payments to the New York and Chicago projects, forcing courts to intervene.
As the number of pending projects builds up, so has anxiety about the federal government’s support for major transit infrastructure. Money that Congress designated for that purpose is accumulating too: More than $7 billion hasn’t been obligated to any project.
“It’s hard to look at the last year and see anything other than a deliberate slowdown of these grants,” said Steve Davis, director of the advocacy group Transportation for America.
The program illustrates a subtler tactic in how the Trump administration is managing federal funds: not just terminating grants, as it did in droves last year, but quietly declining to give out new ones…
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As the administration tries to wrest more control from Congress over federal spending, the potential consequences for infrastructure grants are acute. Delays compound rising construction costs that outpace overall inflation. Without the certainty of federal funding, it’s harder for communities to pursue bonds and other financing for big projects.
And any unspent grant money is something tangible not built — a subway station without elevators for accessibility, a bus line without dedicated lanes for faster travel, a commuter rail that can’t carry enough trains…
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It’s not unusual for an administration to complete few of these grant agreements in its first year (the Biden administration signed six in its final weeks in office, clearing the decks as outgoing officials often do). But people who follow the program say the drought has grown more conspicuous.
“The concern here is that we’re 18 months without a signed” agreement, said Ward McCarragher, the vice president for government affairs and advocacy for the American Public Transportation Association. And 10 projects pursuing grants already have all their funding ready in the F.T.A.’s internal accounting, he noted, including $375 million for bus rapid transit service in Charleston, S.C., and $150 million each for bus projects in Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio….
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There are other signs of the administration’s disregard for these grants, even if it can’t end a program Congress created. The first Trump Administration proposed eliminating its funding at one point (Congress funded it anyway)….
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When the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the White House budget office could simply push that money into the future again. The office did not respond to questions about how it has handled the program.
While communities wait, voters’ expectations are at stake, too……
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