After a lot more talk, the Trump administration finally released its infrastructure plan on Feb. 12, 2018, shortly after his first State of the Union address. The used-car-salesman-in-chief called it “the biggest and boldest infrastructure investment in American history.” The reality, according to an analysis done at Penn’s Wharton School of Business, was that the plan would have “little to no impact” on the economy. Furthermore, the details made clear that, in terms of impact, Trump designed it to reward red states and punish blue ones.

Overall, the White House claimed it would result in $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending. That might have been the amount Trump hoped would be spent, but he proposed that the federal government spend only $200 billion—all of which would have to be “paid for” by an equivalent amount of cuts elsewhere in the budget, cuts which Trump did not specify. Note that Trump’s tax cut for millionaires didn’t have to be paid for (it was going to pay for itself, Trump’s minions falsely claimed).

Trump’s $200 billion was supposed to be complemented by another $1.3 trillion in spending by state and local governments, and by the private sector, but none of that additional money was guaranteed or even likely to come into existence.

Besides the hypothetical nature of 85 percent of the money in this (shell of a) plan, by what criteria would potential projects be chosen? According to the White House’s guidelines, a project’s likelihood of attracting non-federal government funding would count 14 times as much as the degree to which “the project will spur economic and social returns on investment.” In other words, the people in charge would typically choose projects that are likely to bring in money from corporations who think they can make a profit over ones that would directly benefit large numbers of people.

You may be asking yourself whether those are sound criteria to determine where our government should be investing its precious infrastructure funding. But who are we to question a president who knows about building stuff? Here’s what an actual expert thought of this plan:

“Instead of the public sector deciding on public needs and public priorities, the projects that are most attractive to private investors are the ones that will go to the head of the line,” said Elliott Sclar, professor of urban planning and international affairs at Columbia University. “Private investors will become the tail that will wag the dog, because they’ll want projects that will give returns.” [snip] “A private corporation has a fiduciary obligation to make a profit. The government is supposed to be providing a public service,” Mr. Sclar said.

As badly thought-out as his proposal was, the silver lining is that Trump has put essentially no effort into passing it. As of July, the plan was pretty much kaput in Congress. But the failure of Trump’s plan does not obviate the need for a significant investment in our infrastructure. Just look at the numbers. A half-century ago, our spending on transportation-related infrastructure was double what it is now. At the current pace, this shortfall will grow to the point that, by 2025, it will whack just short of $4 trillion from our GDP and cost 2.5 million jobs. We need to act now, and the Republicans in Congress are twiddling their thumbs while Trump tweets lies about the media, and race-baits about white farmers in South Africa.

This leaves a major opening for Democrats, in particular those running for the House or Senate this fall. It appears that they plan to drive a forklift (sorry, couldn’t resist) through that opening. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer laid out his thoughts on the matter: “Skills training and infrastructure need to be our initial focus. Infrastructure, I think would be fair to say, has a pretty broad consensus in our party.” As for Trump’s plan, Hoyer called it: “woefully, woefully, woefully inadequate, and [it] has been dismissed essentially, by his own colleagues in the Congress.”

The Congressional Progressive Caucus likewise has put investing in infrastructure at the top of its priority list, calling for a 10-year, $2 trillion package. From the CPC’s 2019 People’s Budget:

The People’s Budget invests $2 trillion to eliminate our lead-contaminated water system, address our overburdened mass transit system, and rebuild our schools, crumbling roads, and bridges. This budget transforms our fossil-fuel energy system to ensure our children have an inhabitable planet, and provides funding for worker re-training and apprenticeship programs.

We can look forward to Democrats pounding their opponents on the campaign trail over the GOP’s complete abdication of their responsibility to repair and enhance our infrastructure. If done properly, these are investments that can actually pay for themselves by improving our economic productivity, not to mention create good-paying jobs for those working on the projects, or supplying material, etc.

Democrats, in their 2009 stimulus bill, included $80 billion in infrastructure spending. Should it have been more? Sure, but it came at exactly the right time, when the economy was in free fall—thanks to the Great Recession that George W. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress of the 2000s bequeathed us. Michael Grabell, a journalist who writes for ProPublica and who wrote a book on the stimulus, argued that, while the package was not perfect on infrastructure, we can say the following:

Generations from now, there will be countless projects that communities can point to as the enduring legacy of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The $80 billion for roads, runways, waterworks, rails, federal buildings, and parks was one of the largest investments in the nation's infrastructure since President Eisenhower established the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.

Obama and the Democrats got their bill enacted within weeks of the 2009 inauguration. We’re at a year-and-a-half and counting on Trump’s time in office. What will we say “generations from now” about his administration’s contributions on infrastructure?

Trump and the Republicans made no substantive progress this week on the infrastructure spending front—same as the week before, the week before that, and plenty more before that one. Given the bigly nature of Trump’s promises combined with his corporate tax bonanza, this failure on infrastructure only further demonstrates that his administration serves the wealthy elites while ignoring the working and middle classes. That’s why yet another week where nothing happened on infrastructure is a major story.

Ian Reifowitz is the author of Obama’s America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity (Potomac Books).