iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — After five days with no public appearances on his schedule, President Donald Trump arrived in Richfield, Ohio, on Thursday to speak with local workers and make a public relations push for his administration’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan.
The president will deliver remarks with construction equipment as his backdrop at a training site for members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18.
“Following on the success of tax reform, infrastructure is the next piece of the president’s successful economic agenda,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday to reporters in a preview of the president’s remarks.
Despite the administration’s public relations push for the plan, which calls for $200 billion in new federal funds that the administration anticipates will stimulate $1.5 trillion in new investment in infrastructure, it remains unclear just how much appetite lawmakers have for such an overhaul leading up to the 2018 midterm elections.
In late February, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn suggested that a boost in infrastructure spending could be a tough sell to lawmakers over the rest of the congressional agenda.
“I think it’s gonna be hard, because we have so many other things to do and we don’t have much time,” Cornyn, R-Texas, said.
An administration official said Wednesday, though, that the White House remains optimistic it will be able to pass parts of the president’s infrastructure plan, even if it means in smaller “legislative vehicles.”
“We see quite a bit of movement on Capitol Hill right now on different elements of the president’s plan,” the official said. “So I think the odds that pieces of this pass this year are very, very high.”
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