Donald Trump’s so-called infrastructure plan is a huge giveaway to Wall Street that fails to create the millions of jobs we need to modernize our roads, bridges, water systems, rail, airports, levees and dams.

At a time when the American Society of Civil Engineers says we need to spend $2 trillion above current spending levels just to get our infrastructure back to a state of good repair, Trump actually cuts direct federal spending on our crumbling infrastructure by nearly $145 billion over the next decade. This would force state and local governments to shoulder more of the financial burden for our infrastructure needs at a time when they can least afford it.

Just like Trump’s “health care” bill is actually a $231 billion tax cut for the top 2 percent, his infrastructure plan would create $200 billion in new tax loopholes and other giveaways for wealthy investors, and it would reward corporations that have stashed their profits overseas with huge tax cuts.

Under Trump’s proposal, billionaires on Wall Street, wealthy campaign contributors and even foreign governments would receive hundreds of billions in tax breaks to purchase our highways, airports, and water treatment plants. They would then be allowed to impose huge new tolls and fees on the backs of American commuters and homeowners.

The reality is that Trump’s plan to sell off our nation’s highways, bridges, and other vital infrastructure to Wall Street, private investors, and foreign governments is an old idea that does not work.

Trump’s plan to rebuild America relies heavily on the use of public-private partnerships to finance infrastructure projects with private equity capital. Such financing, whether through private equity or traditional tax-exempt municipal bonds, is repaid by ordinary citizens through a combination of taxes and user fees. Private equity financing is markedly more expensive than traditional government financing, however — by as much as three to six times. Considering the scale of infrastructure development under consideration, that difference could be enormous. For example: the charge for a $100 million-dollar investment using traditional government bond financing (at 3 percent, over 30 years) is about $90 million. For private equity capital, at a 15 percent return, the total skyrockets to $450 million.

For example, in Chicago, a private investor group led by Morgan Stanley will collect $11 billion as part of its 75-year contract to run the city’s parking meters. Not only have they raised parking prices by as much as 800 percent in some neighborhoods but incredibly, the city has been forced to pay $31 million and counting to cover lost revenue whenever a street is temporarily closed for maintenance. Chicago is already struggling with high crime and unfunded teachers’ pensions, yet it is diverting resources to pad the bottom line of these investors.

In Indiana, tolls on a privatized road more than doubled this month as commuters wait in long lines and visit unsanitary rest stops. In Bayonne, New Jersey, many homeowners are at risk of foreclosure because they cannot afford water bills that have spiked dramatically after the water system was taken over by a private equity firm. In Atlanta, after taking over the water system in 1999, the new private operators fired 400 workers and cut training for those who remained. The result? More water main failures, and water quality declined.

In California, Texas, and South Carolina, privately-owned toll roads went bankrupt or were foreclosed because of exaggerated projections from investors. Time and again, these private companies who take over public infrastructure showed they do not represent the public’s best interests.

In addition to the obvious siphoning of public resources that Trump’s tax breaks and private equity financing entail, his Administration has been pushing “asset recycling,” i.e., selling off existing assets, like airports, bridges, and highway rest stops, to private investors and using the revenue (“recycling” it) to fund new facilities.

It is important to note, moreover, that weak investment in America’s infrastructure is not due to lack of access to financing, but because of constraints associated with insufficient state and local government revenue. Trump’s public-private partnership model does not address this problem, and in fact, exacerbates it by increasing overall costs to taxpayers. And because smaller-scale projects, like those in rural areas, may not be profitable enough to attract private equity investors, his model risks leaving many parts of the country behind.

But Donald Trump wants to hand over more critical public infrastructure to private investors who will squeeze profits from the American people by putting up new tolls and exorbitant users’ fees. That would be unacceptable. We shouldn’t be selling off public assets to billionaires to make huge profits on the backs of working people.

Trump’s plan is the exact opposite of what we should be doing as a nation. Instead of creating more tax giveaways to corporate America and Wall Street, we should be eliminating tax loopholes that allow profitable corporations to stash their cash in offshore tax havens around the world. And we should be using this revenue to directly invest $1 trillion to modernize our nation’s infrastructure — a plan that would put 15 million Americans back to work in good-paying jobs.

Today, the United States spends less on infrastructure, as a percent of GDP, than at any time in the past twenty years. The reality is that every day, Americans drive to work on potholed roads and rundown bridges. They ride in overcrowded buses and subways, and journey through shabby airports. Children struggle to concentrate in dark, overcrowded classrooms; and in some parts of the country, their schools lack adequate heat and basic cleanliness. The structures that most Americans don’t see are also in disrepair — from spotty broadband and an outdated electric grid, to toxic drinking water and dilapidated levees and dams. This is what happens when a nation underfunds the physical infrastructure on which its people and economy depend. We need to be spending more on infrastructure, not less. And we should not be providing more tax breaks to fund risky privatization schemes.

The failure of privatization plans — transferring control of public infrastructure to private interests — that Trump would double down on can be seen across the country.

TOP 10 FAILED PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

1. Chicago Parking Meters