Coming Soon, Economists Hope: Big Spending on Roads, Bridges and Ports
'Mrs. Clinton has said that if she is elected president, her administration would seek to spend $250 billion over five years on repairing and improving the nation’s infrastructure — not just ports but roads, bridges, energy systems and high-speed broadband — and would put an additional $25 billion toward a national infrastructure bank to spur related business investments. Mr. Trump said he wanted to go even bigger, saying his administration would spend at least twice as much as Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Trump, taking a page from liberal economists, said he would fund his plan by borrowing several hundred billion dollars, but has offered no specifics. Mrs. Clinton’s more detailed proposal, by contrast, would be paid for by a business tax overhaul aimed at collecting additional revenue from companies that have parked assets abroad.
These are only plans, of course. Either would have to get through Congress and the inevitable acrimony over any proposal to raise taxes or add to the national debt. . .
The federal government, with its wide latitude to spend on ambitious projects, is in a singular position to make investments no one else will.
But the government’s power to act has also set off a robust debate about how much more it should spend on infrastructure and how it should be funded. Spend too little, and the nation’s backbone deteriorates and the cost of future repairs mounts. Spend too much too fast, and the government could crowd out private investment, possibly leading to higher inflation and pushing up interest rates.
Today, with maintenance lacking and interest rates low, a host of influential economists, including Lawrence H. Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, argue that America’s need for better infrastructure is so great that it could increase its debt load and still come out ahead.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Summers laid out his case: The federal government can borrow at something like 1 percent interest a year, and through enhanced productivity it would reap something like 3 percent a year in higher tax receipts.'>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/business/economy/coming-soon-economists-hope-big-spending-on-roads-bridges-and-ports.html?
