Math Will Kill Trump's Infrastructure Plan

In his address to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump once again brought up his support for a large infrastructure package. And there’s good reason for this: It’s not nearly as polarizing as most other parts of his agenda and would stimulate economic growth in a way that would benefit blue-collar workers who were key to his election. But like much of his agenda, it’s short on details, and the labor-market math doesn’t add up.

Here’s the napkin version. The trillion-dollar package being discussed is understood to be $100 billion of spending per year for 10 years. Leave aside the fact that infrastructure spending is notoriously messy and slow, as environmental delays and other project-specific concerns make it hard to spend the money as fast as a policymaker or economist would like. The labor question alone shows that this vision is impossible.