Skift Take
President Trump's budget outline shows that his focus on national defense may come at the expense of aviation security and infrastructure improvement. Fortunately, Congress will likely push back against some of these cuts.
For an administration that is supposed to be prioritizing a massive infrastructure improvement plan, there is very little evidence of such a focus in President Donald Trump's latest documents detailing his ideas for the discretionary portion of the 2018 fiscal year federal budget.
In fact, big cuts could be coming to several important elements of the U.S. transportation system.
While the budget outline doesn't mean these cuts will happen, since the U.S. federal budget needs to be tweaked by Congress and approved, it does expose the priorities of the executive branch in its first year under a new administration. Its priorities, unfortunately, will likely come at the expense of U.S. infrastructure and tourism.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) would have its discretionary budget cut by 13 percent, or $2.4 billion, according to the document..
The oft-mentioned $1 trillion infrastructure improvement plan touted by President Trump is given only a passing mention at the beginning of the budget document.
"The President has emphasized that one of his top priorities is modernizing the outdated infrastructure that the American public depends upon," states the document's introductory highlights. "To spearhead his infrastructure initiative, the President has tapped a group of infrastructure experts to evaluate investment options along with commonsense regulatory, administrative, organizational, and policy changes to enc
