Former Speaker of the House John Boehner says President-elect Trump should pursue a big infrastructure spending bill in his first 100 days in office — and attach an increase of the debt ceiling to the legislation while he’s at it.
But appearing on CNBC Tuesday, the Ohio Republican also said Trump needs to figure out how to pay for the nation’s infrastructure needs without just allowing the deficit grow.
“We have big infrastructure needs and we don’t have a revenue source that’s very good,” Boehner said. “The gas tax revenues keep falling because cars are getting more miles to the gallon. We need a longer-term infrastructure plan than what we have in place, and I think there’s broad bipartisan support on the Hill for this piece of legislation.”
Trump has said he wants to spend north of $1 trillion on infrastructure during his time in office, often railing against the country’s crumbling roads, bridges and airports during the presidential campaign. But Trump also says he wants to cut taxes to stimulate the economy and hasn’t specified how he would pay for these infrastructure upgrades.
There appears to be an appetite among lawmakers for an infrastructure bill that could pass through Congress. Some Democrats have signaled this is an issue they could see themselves working on with Trump.
Boehner suggested that Trump take advantage of both parties being willing to work together on infrastructure by also using it as an opportunity to increase the debt ceiling.
“It will be so popular that if I were President Trump, I would attach an increase in the debt limit to it as well, which is going to come up in March, and get that monkey off his back,” Boehner said.
The Ohio Republican argued Trump must to pass some sort of tax reform that brings back business taxes currently being stashed overseas, which he estimated is worth about $2 trillion.
Repatriating those taxes would do even more to help the economy than infrastructure spending, Boehner said.
“We need infrastructure spending in a big way, and it’ll help the economy in some way but tax reform in a broader sense would do more for our economy, do more to create economic growth and do more to grow jobs in American than just an infrastructure bill,” he said.
