Still, some governors and mayors have already balked, saying they’re doing their fair share and that much more federal funding is needed to meet what the American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated to be a $2 trillion funding gap for infrastructure by 2025. Some advocates say the best chance was to include measures such as a higher gas tax or levies on corporate profits returned from overseas in the tax overhaul.
“We need to be honest with the American people: failure to find the revenue for an infrastructure initiative now, as part of tax reform, will make passage of such a package nearly impossible in the future,” Bud Wright, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said in a letter last month to Senate leaders.
The White House official said it would have been too difficult to combine infrastructure with the tax bill. The plan now is to give Congress a blueprint for a bill and allow the details -- including funding -- to be negotiated in a bipartisan way, the official said.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.