The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed due to the efforts and political skills of Joe Biden kicked off a ‘bigly’ number of public works projects around the country. Public buildings, and also roads and bridges and upgrading railway lines etc. Infrastructure. It’s common for a Groundbreaking Ceremony to be held when a public works project gets started. Since forever politicians have turned up to give a “Look what I brought you” speech. So it has been with the projects that kicked off thanks to Joe Biden. And Democrats. Republicans? NONE of them voted for that legislation but that hasn’t stopped them from showing up and trying to take credit. Well, THOSE days are over.
In those red states in particular GOP Congress Critters would face some news coverage about claiming credit for a bill they opposed but one thing the GOP has been masterful at over the decades is lying their butts off. In this case just continuing to brazenly take credit for Biden’s/Democrat’s work after the initial press coverage of the project’s groundbreaking subsided. And it’s worked. Lord knows especially NOW they need things they can point to with the voters. Their new problem is that they’ve been “Trumped.” Yes, as Alternet tells us Trumpty has decided to put HIS ‘brand’ on all this stuff.
Trump of course was out of office when the legislation passed and projects started getting underway. That didn’t stop him from LOUDLY opposing it, which one assumes is why even GOPers in swing districts voted No. However those public works projects provide jobs and pump money into local (and with big projects state too) economies. That’s why they brazenly show up at those ceremonies to claim credit! However all over the country public works projects are seeing TRUMP slap his name on them with great bigly banners giving HIM the credit for the project. I guess by law/code actual credit has to be on the signage but it’s a little blurb tucked away. ‘Fine Print’ if you will.
The point is that despite having opposed all this he’s grandly making a big freaking deal about this ‘wonderful’ stuff being all due to him:
The New York Times reported Sunday that in southern Connecticut, a $1.3 billion effort to replace a 118‑year‑old rail bridge along America’s busiest rail corridor is underway, mostly paid for by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The legislation was championed by then‑President Joe Biden and fiercely rejected by Trump.
According to the report, motorists passing the site now encounter a red roadside sign declaring, “PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP — REBUILDING AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE,” preceded by a smaller note acknowledging the project’s funding source as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
I’m sure you remember how during Trump’s first term “Infrastructure Week” became a running joke. He’d hold a press conference to tell us how all this amazing work to fix infrastructure was going to get done now. That other Presidents had promised but failed to deliver. HE however would fix it! He was a builder, a developer after all and he told us unlike predecessors HE knew how to ‘do construction.’ Of course nothing ever got done. It takes MONEY and people who know how to set priorities on needs as well as how to route federal funds to the state and local level. It takes complicated as hell legislation. That amount of work has never, ever been something Trump was willing to do.
What he HAS been willing to do his entire life is take credit for other’s work and blame others for his own mistakes and wrongdoing. So, now he’s slapping up big ‘Trump did this’ banners on projects funded by legislation he opposed. Since there’s federal money involved it’s not like those spending it as they actually get the work done can say no:
Amtrak spokesman W. Kyle Anderson told The Times that the new signs “are a voluntary Amtrak initiative, updating outdated signage posted at the project locations listed previously, following the change in presidential administrations earlier this year.”
Since then, analogous Trump-branded signs have emerged at other federally funded infrastructure sites—bridge projects in Connecticut and Maryland, rail-yard improvements in Seattle, Boston, and Philadelphia, and a tunnel replacement on Amtrak’s Baltimore-Washington corridor, per the report.
That part about ‘voluntary’ from the Amtrak dude jumped out at me. Voluntary my ass! This is Trump 2.0 and not following a ‘suggestion’ to aggrandize the orange painted Turd-God-Emperor means getting fired. Hell, project managers not doing it on their own might well find themselves out of a job. Such is the ego of our current President. You have to think at some point enablers helping Trumpty inflate that ego will cause it to pop like a balloon. In the meantime, GOP Congress Critters now risk the wrath of Trump if THEY try to claim credit for projects they opposed. It’s Trump’s GOP now and all credit/glory goes to him and only him.
He steals everything else.
Of course he’ll steal credit.