Media, Law & Policy

New Infrastructure Plan: Not Enough Money and No National Strategy

Monday, February 12, 2018, By Ellen Mbuqe

David Van Slyke, Dean of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, is available to talk about the newly-announced infrastructure plan.

Van Slyke is a leading international expert on policy and infrastructure, public-private partnerships and public sector contracting. He recently wrote an op-ed, “Trump’s infrastructure plan: How ‘private’ will he go?” about public-private partnerships in government.

His thoughts on the newly-announced infrastructure plan are that it does not offer enough money and lacks the cohesive strategy to cement it together.

“Most importantly, it’s much too little money. Our country’s infrastructure needs are conservatively valued as requiring a multi-trillion-dollar investment. The President’s proposal calls for the federal government to spend $200 billion over ten years in order to spur another $1.3 trillion in spending at the state and local level and through private investment. So, the lion’s share of either public or private funding is going to have to come from communities, in the form of increased taxes or user fees, and we’re still trillions of dollars short,” he says.

“There’s also a notable lack of prioritization of infrastructure projects — no national strategy for moving the country forward. It’s up to states, cities and rural communities to figure out how to allocate resources, disconnected from an economic strategy. The President has said that the U.S. is open for business. But what type of business? And how will our investment in infrastructure support this direction,” says Van Slyke.

In addition to serving as Dean of the Maxwell School, home to the #1 ranked public policy program, Van Slyke is also the Director and Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a co-editor of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and the Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation. He has provided expert guidance to the Office of Management and Budget, the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the World Bank.

Van Slyke is available to talk to media. Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, director of news and PR at Syracuse University, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 315.443.1897 or Keith Kobland, media manager at Syracuse University, at kkboland@syr.edu or 315.443.9038.