Will Trump Make Infrastructure Great Again? Q&A with Bob Poole

Reason's Bob Poole discusses why he's encouraged by Trump’s early moves on transportation policy.

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"What we know about Trump so far is that he talked a lot about crumbling infrastructure and the need to make America's infrastructure great again," says Bob Poole, Searle Freedom Trust Fellow and the Director of Transportation Policy at the Reason Foundation. "This suggests a big new emphasis on some kind of federal transportation program."

Poole sat down with Nick Gillespie to discuss the transportation policies likely to be introduced in the new Trump administration and reasons for libertarians to feel hopeful when it comes to the president-elect's infrastructure plan. "I'm encouraged by what I see," says Poole, who cites the involvement of Shirley Ybarra, a former Reason Foundation fellow and Secretary of Transportation in the state of Virginia, as a sign that Trump will look to public private partnerships as part of his transportation strategy.

During the campaign, Trump proposed a transportation plan that would cost at least $500 billion dollars, but has been vague as to how the program would be financed.

Poole says that the best way to raise funds is to treat infrastructure as a public utility. "People get their highway bill every month like they get their electric bill and water bill," Poole states. "They're paying for what they use and only what they use. They're not subsidizing a whole bunch of other projects that they never see."

Watch the video above for the full conversation.

Interview by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Alexis Garcia. Camera by Meredith Bragg and Jim Epstein. Music by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena and Jingle Punks.