A #Lyin'Donald proposal: "... to turn America’s highways and byways into a for-profit business venture, letting Wall Street charge rent from millions of Americans on private highways across the country." Isn't that great?

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Trump Just Told The Truth, And It’s More Terrifying Than His Racism And Lies
By Grant Stern, November 5, 2016

Donald Trump just released a pair of true statements about policy which should horrify anyone in the 99 percent about the Republican’s plan to foster income inequality and a vast expansion of highway taxation on regular people.

It’s only days from the election ending, Donald Trump’s campaign just released the Republican nominee’s plan to cut $100 billion dollars in federal climate change spending over eight years, presumably to pay for the ridiculous tax cuts to the rich he proposes.

In late October, Trump also announced another policy; to turn America’s highways and byways into a for-profit business venture, letting Wall Street charge rent from millions of Americans on private highways across the country.

The Republican party successfully conducted an entire primary and general election without addressing a single key policy issue on the campaign trail, with seventeen GOP candidates who mainly looked foolish, pandered to racism or religious zealotry or hurled insults.

Now, it’s been days since the Trump campaign revealed its federal climate change spending policy was unveiled, but the mainstream media hasn’t even noticed. 

It’s not slapstick or dirty talk, there’s no room for coverage.

The Trump private roads and transportation plan was unveiled on Oct. 27th, but the full impact took a few days to be understood.

When the Republican candidate claims at rallies to want a trillion dollars in infrastructure spending, naturally voters assume that the assets would be publicly owned and free to use.

But nobody is awake at the switch, outside of Slate.

In fact, Trump’s transportation infrastructure plan would privatize most of the new construction, make it all toll driven and concentrated in wealthy areas:

Despite the Trump campaign’s sales pitch, it may also be a pretty expensive plan for building new roads. Governments can borrow for much, much less than your typical private company. That gives them a big, built-in cost advantage when it comes to infrastructure. If a corporation wants to compete, it has to be hyper-efficient about construction. And some might be! But between the higher interest rates they pay on their debt and the need to turn a profit, chances are a lot of private developers would end up just charging a boatload in tolls and fees—more, over time, than the government would have to levy in taxes ... The main beneficiaries, in all likelihood, are the Wall Street investors who would love to skim some cash off your ride to work.

Roads are a classic example of something that government does better than private entities, like the Interstate Highway System.

America’s highways and roads all connect logically, are easy to navigate and mostly free to use, even though different government entities own each one.

But most major media outlets who consider themselves “objective” are interested in the “FBI has become Trumplandia” drama, more than these vitally important policy matters that might actually inform voters.

Luckily, Bloomberg noticed something amiss and reported extensively on the pernicious Trump campaign climate change spending plan:

Donald Trump says he would save $100 billion over eight years by cutting all federal climate change spending—a sum his campaign says would be achieved by eliminating domestic and international climate programs.

We’re going to put America first. That includes canceling billions in climate change spending for the United Nations, a number Hillary wants to increase, and instead use that money to provide for American infrastructure including clean water, clean air and safety,” the Republican presidential candidate said Oct. 31 at a rally in Warren, Mich. “We’re giving away billions and billions and billions of dollars,” he said. The Trump campaign did not give a specific tally to account for the $100 billion total in response to a query from Bloomberg BNA.

But in an e-mail, the campaign press office said that the figure combined an estimate of what the Obama administration had spent on climate-related programs, the amount of U.S. contributions to an international climate fund that Trump would cancel, and a calculation of what Trump believes would be savings to the economy if Obama’s and Clinton’s climate policies were reversed. The Trump campaign said the $100 billion total included $50 billion, or what it estimated the Obama administration has spent on programs related to climate change. “Eliminating that spending will save similar amounts over the Trump administration,” it said.

Trump and his elected Republican supporters have spent this entire election practicing the art of political distraction by choosing a reality TV clown for President.

During the primary season, networks suspended all fact checking to sell infotainment about the offensive Trump campaign.

It was so much easier to ignore any actual policy discussions.

Now that it’s a general election, the mainstream media is too busy feasting on the high ratings of debates about plagiarism, pussy grabbing and Putin to discuss these actual plans that might make a Trump supporter say: “I don’t want to pay lots of new tolls.”

This story is important for any voter who’s not sure what you’re getting between the two parties, or torn between a third-party and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

While a third-party might promise the moon and the stars, letting Republicans take over the Oval Office with Trump guarantees that climate change efforts will be defunded, quickly.

The first beneficiary of that kind of environmental know nothing-ism would be the Koch Brothers, oil companies and the wealthiest of the wealthy who will get the savings on their tax bills when Trump slashes every form of taxation on the rich to benefit himself and the top 1 percent of earners.

And anyone who drives would feel the pinch of the only new roads being expensive toll lanes which connect wealthy areas to one another - potentially bypassing the poorer areas.

None of this is what Trump supporters think that the candidate is pitching, but they’re blissfully unaware that any policy exists from their campaign.

A policy to deliver America’s infrastructure to Wall Street and give away our green energy investment funds to billionaires for tax breaks.

I guess that’ll make America great for billionaires and infrastructure companies, but the rest of us may be less than thrilled.

Of course, the Republican party is more than happy to back a candidate with these kinds of pro-Wall Street, anti-environment policies because he’s promising to hand off a tremendous tax cut to America’s billionaire class.

Anyone who doesn’t want new taxes on driving, big giveaways to the ultra-wealthy and to end America’s investment in a green economy had better come to grips with the sad facts of the situation

As you can see, when Donald Trump tells the truth about his plans for America, it’s definitely more terrifying than his racism and lies.
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