Trump 'cannot continue to ignore' infrastructure, Martin Tuchman says
As lawmakers return from recess Monday, President Donald Trump is putting pressure on Congress to coalesce around a bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare, however one manufacturing CEO says infrastructure should be an equally important priority.
“You cannot continue to ignore rebuilding the infrastructure … it eventually needs to be replaced and we have been ignoring the infrastructure for a very long time,” Martin Tuchman, co-founder of Interpool and Chairman and CEO of the Tuchman Group, told FOX Business Monday.
While President Donald Trump has proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, it is estimated that, “by 2025 a total investment of $4.59 trillion is required to improve the nation’s infrastructure,” according to a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Tuchman has a plan to fund the nation’s infrastructure rebuild that involves slashing the tax on repatriated profits by 30 percentage points, from 35% to 5%. A subsequent 25% of those repatriated profits would be invested in municipal bonds, giving state legislators discretion over spending.
“If there is in fact $2 trillion dollars that gets repatriated under this plan, $500 billion would go into the rebuilding the infrastructure, also creating jobs,” Tuchman said.
While President Trump has focused on creating high-quality U.S. jobs, Tuchman says investing in the nation’s infrastructure is one surefire way to fuel the labor market.
“You have to remember that infrastructure is not something that can be outsourced, it has to be done in the United States and the jobs that would be created would be good jobs engineers, construction workers, electricians – in my opinion, will be very much supported by the workers and the unions,” he said.