Rep. Steny Hoyer D-Md., the number two Democrat in the House of Representatives, said Tuesday that Democrats would be willing to work with the Trump administration on the president’s infrastructure ambitions — but only if the plan can be paid for.
[Read more: Mnuchin dismisses raising corporate taxes to pay for infrastructure]
“We need to pay for things, and that’s the tough thing,” said Hoyer, adding that everyone supports better infrastructure until they talk about paying for it.
The Trump administration has floated private investment as a tool for paying for a portion of approximately $1 trillion worth of new infrastructure spending, but that strategy could come with its own political pitfalls.
“I’m for infrastructure spending, but I want to pay for it,” said Hoyer. Hoyer said that he would be open to raising the federal gas tax, but that doing so would be unlikely to pay for Trump’s plan on its own. Prior to Hoyer’s appearance at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council conference in Washington, D.C., where he made the comments on Tuesday afternoon, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that no one in the administration had considered raising the corporate income tax to pay for infrastructure, which congressional Democrats have also suggested.
“If you’re borrowing for operating expenses that’s bad economics, that’s bad policy,” added Hoyer, who also criticized last year’s tax cuts pushed for by the administration as contributing to a swelling federal deficit that’s approaching an estimated $1 trillion during this current fiscal year. “I think that’s an intellectually bankrupt policy and a morally bankrupt one as well.”
