October 18: On This Day In 2020
It became a running joke in DC that THIS would finally be the White House’s “Infrastructure Week.” The Trump Administration kept promising they’d come up with some sort of plan, and that they’d unveil it "soon," or “in two weeks.” But they kept forgetting to actually do it.
So, as with so many other Trump promises, virtually nothing came of it on Trump’s watch.
As the Washington Post reported OTDI 2020:
"After repeatedly touting infrastructure during his 2016 campaign, Trump has through four years in office failed to advance infrastructure legislation through Congress. Under his administration, federal investments on roads and bridges as a share of the economy have remained stagnant, while federal spending on water infrastructure projects have fallen to a 30-year low."
The extraordinary incompetence of the Trump Administration created “an opening for Biden.”
So the Biden Administration, of course, really did get something done. Spearheaded by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and others, the White House developed a massive $1 trillion infrastructure plan to help heal America’s roads, data systems, airports, etc.. And they got bipartisan support in Congress to actually get it passed in 2022.
But, hey, at least Donald got something out of his many attempts to publicize the upcoming (non-existent) Infrastructure Week: He got to play in the “big boy trucks” a few different times while at the White House. He seemed to really to get into that!
Even if it meant health care programs were usually dying at the same time, as noted by MSNBC:
Dive Deeper
The Washington Post reports on Trump’s many Infrastructure false starts
NPR reports on Biden signing $1 trillion infrastructure bill in 2022
New York magazine on when Trump got to play with the Big Boy trucks
On This Day In The Trump Administration: Trump fails to do Infrastructure Week; Biden/Harris succeeds