has the best chance at getting into a great college. >> we have a lot of programs in place for students who come into college to make sure they are both academically ready and financially ready to take on the burden of four years of school. >> as high schoolers, we don't have the ability to wipe away all the corruption but we are raising awareness of the issue. it is not a simple problem and it has been here for a long time. we hope our new president takes big steps to level the playing field in college admissions. ♪ winningan watch each documentary online. >> continues. host: eugene mulero joins us via zoom. he is a senior reporter for transport topics. there has been discussion amid the coronavirus pandemic about a

massive new infrastructure package to boost an ailing economy. how big a package are we talking about and what is the likelihood that it would get passed on capitol hill and signed by the president? guest: president trump has, for the past week, been calling for $6infrastructure plan at trillion. he is saying this is something that can fix our roads, bridges, potholes. he is talking about ways we can expand access to broadband in rural parts of the country. this is something that the president has been talking about since he was a candidate. however, the money he is talking about, the white house has now put out a document that will lay out the president's vision for this plan. while he is adamant this is something that could create jobs

and help with the economic recovery, on capitol hill he does not have support from senate republicans and house democrats. both congressional leaders wants to have an emergency response to the crises and focus on infrastructure later down the road. do the pelosi is saying infrastructure package when they have more time to work on this. democrats have put out an infrastructure plan of their own, scaled down a bit, and the area of 750 billion dollars. guest: the democrats in january had a plan. it is a comprehensive proposal that looked at not only surface transportation but our aviation grid, as wellal

as broadband and waterways. president --th the when the president talked with his infrastructure proposal, speaker pelosi was quick to galvanize her leadership team and go on board with that suggestion, saying that the next phase of the economic recovery package should be infrastructure focused. at whatnot only looking her plan was in january but also pressing ahead with environmental centric provisions. reasons, people on capitol hill are telling me the speaker shifted her focus within days. on wednesday, she was document infrastructure. by friday, she went back to

emergency response. the democrats have not abandoned infrastructure. the speaker's focus is on emergency response. host: we have seen three emergency response packages pass on capitol hill. the first two really did not touch on the central infrastructure projects you and i think about and stakeholders think about. the first one did address some specific infrastructure sectors, , air cargo and got grants ands some assistance of $10 billion. the airlines also had access to $46 billion in loans.

this was not for airlines and airports. or make up enhance for loss of business. transit received $25 billion. this was not for the but for transport .gencies to build new programs this was to make up for loss of ridership. billion.bout $1 about $1 billion. truckers, fright rail, they are expected to be somewhat of the focus in this next, down the

road in these economic recovery packages. host: eugene mulero will tonsport topics, if you want -- with transport topics, if you want to check out his work. you can call in on phone lines, split regionally. (202) 748-8000 if you are in the eastern or central time zones. (202) 748-8001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. let us know what is going on in your part of the country and what you are seeing on the roads if and when you are traveling. go ahead. hope you guys are doing well. the first thing i want to do is say a short prayer for all the families and people who are passed away. -- passed away from covid. with that settled with, trump

cannot do -- we cannot do an infrastructure bill until -- let me go back. obama tried an infrastructure , alleged it was public shovel ready for -- projects. hardly even a pothole got filled. corruption.into trump needs to audit. wherever federal money goes, we can audit it. pray that he appoints an inspector general to trace and follow all the money into the social services, into the metros, the transits, the department of transportation. he needs to follow all of that money.

before covid, before they knew how much covid was going to hit, they started building tents outside hospitals and in parking about everyjust county. i want to know how many millions of dollars they are going to charge for throwing out that rickety tent. host: eugene mulero, take us back to the american reinvestment recovery act, the lessons learned from that. guest: that was obama's first major way to stimulate the economy. the circumstances were rather different. i do want to clarify a little bit of what the caller suggested. projectsr shovel ready and some of the money, there has

been audits on it, and it did go to financing local road projects, local highways, school districts, municipalities and states used it. projects that were big picture projects. southeast --the some states in the southeast did not accept available funding. that was more to stimulate the economy. what we have seen right now out are these hill funding to make up for the loss of commerce. money congress has given to the airlines in loans and grants aretransit communities pretty much to stabilize and loss ofthe laws of --

business, loss of commerce, and not necessarily to rebuild. big numbers. the other thing is that christie hasa -- president trump somewhat of a money problem with his infrastructure package because he is talking about relying on deficit spending, borrowing the money, true trillion,ollars -- $2 zero percent interest. long-term infrastructure, especially surface transportation, that is backed by revenue from the highway trust fund. that is something that congress and the administration's previous to president trump have the hardown and taken votes on issues, look hard at how to restore solvency of the highway trust fund. do you want to do a brief

one-on-one on the highway trust fund for folks who may not be familiar? guest: the highway trust fund is an account managed at the u.s. to partner transportation. 24.4 cents for diesel. in the past more than a decade has been insufficient to meet the needs around the country, to help roads.n and repair there has been -- congress has been injecting money from the general fund into the highway trust fund to ensure that the obligations -- the federal government is required to give money back to the states through formula funding, to ensure that there are repairs. if you talk to stakeholders, the

quickest way to restore the solvency of the highway trust fund is by raising the fuel tax at the federal level. sinces something that, 1993, has not happened. president trump has not publicly endorsed that idea. pretty much you cannot have a discussion against infrastructure if you do not that to theow to do highway trust fund. host: eugene mulero summing up a topic of committee hearings in the transportation committees in the house. here to take your phone calls to walk you through transportation infrastructure issues. this is merrill out of plainview, new york. caller: thank you for taking my call. i support president trump 100%. he is a patriotic american and he is looking out for our interests. as far as the infrastructure

goes, we all know that the roads are in terrible shape, some of the roads. once we get past this pandemic, it would be good to rebuild the country. i trust the president to lead the country in that. as far as the pandemic, i have noticed a pattern. the pattern is create a problem, profit from the problem you have created, and with the victim dies there is no accountability. i'm speaking about new york state's wrongful death statute. it is legally better to kill people in new york state then enter them. our lives are worth our paychecks. state bill to correct this has been in the state capital since 1994. host: it sounds like a topic for another day. we only have about 10 minutes left with eugene mulero. we wanted to let you way in in terms of profits right now.

there are transfer systems around the country that rely on revenue streams of people actually traveling on roads and paying tolls. there are less people traveling now. what does that mean for those groups, for those organizations, and for those states? guest: if you look at department of transportation statewide, agencies are calling on the federal government to approve the next recovery package, something about $50 billion. it can make up for this loss of revenue. that is less money going into paying the fuel tax then goes to fund the highway trust fund. diversity -- states do foresee and project having to be struggling financially because

of this loss of revenue. of the what the purpose $25 billion were transferred systems was here and have been talking. groups are telling me that may not be enough in the long term. the one in washington, d.c. has struggled financially in the past years. -- this justady compounded that crisis for them. expectation that not only state trance rotation agencies but also other modes of transportation. -- we could be looking at the trucking industry, freight rail, the whole infrastructure network will be receiving some sort of a -- economic relief from capitol hill not so they can rebuild projects but just so they can

stay above water and maintain the programs and services they already provide. host: jimmy out of las vegas, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i got disconnected. i was talking about coronavirus. more than 10,000 is too many dead. i do not think there should be any deaths. i think initially our president it was very hard to solve this problem. host: jimmy in nevada. this is danny out of louisiana. good morning. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: good morning. i wish everyone well through this crisis. on the infrastructure thing,

that is our hope to work our way out of this. our infrastructure has been hasred while our defense been ballistic. this does not make sense for society. the only way to work ourselves out of this mess is to rebuild our infrastructure. put everybody back to work. to say one other thing in closing. i am a 72-year-old vietnam bedran, lying for bed -- in for three years fighting aids and the side effects of chemo. i have watched my country deteriorate in my lifetime to where it is unrecognizable. we need to find reasons to unite and love each other again. that is all i have to say. thank you. host: thanks for the call. iowa.s randy in

caller: i want to comment that that last caller really touched me. i am a 64-year-old vietnam veteran. god bless him and his fight to survive. the point i wanted to make is that the situation with the infrastructure bill and all this deficit spending is we have a president with six bankruptcies in his history. he now has half $1 trillion to spend, discretionary slush fund pretty much. these tax cuts he enacted accelerated the deficit curve of this country and has to be dealt with. not stopats do spending and allowing this thing to continue, to a salary this deficit, piling on trillions of dollars, without addressing the tax issue, then they are falling into the trap.

democracy andof andend of freedom for all representation by the federal government in an equal fashion. they have got -- trump has been trying to drown government in the bathtub to do budget cuts for the last three years and now we are spending money like there is no end, like we can keep renting it and there will be no consequences to it. , i haveastructure bill been infrastructure worker all my life. it is important. it was more important than the tax cuts that trump got enacted. we need some fiscal responsibility and democrats with some backbone and people who report on this stuff every day. i want to thank you, eugene, for being on the show today.

i will end my comment. host: eugene mulero, you report on this every day. your thoughts? howt: the whole point about you pay for an infrastructure are --, the democrats one of their proposals led by chuck schumer has been to -- trumphe tax cuts euro tax cuts. era tax cuts. that was dead on arrival with his senate counterparts. when you look at the transportation committee, they are big proponents of an untested nationwide vehicle miles per travel -- miles for.led this is something still at the state level, but nationwide is not ready right now. the trumpet ministration in 2018 came out with a infrastructure

cameuck club and 20 team -- trump administration in 2018 came out with an infrastructure plan. that is something that not only a broad coalition of democrats on capitol hill but also lawmakers who represent rural parts of the country, they are not fans of the private sector being a strong partner on infrastructure because the private sector is there to make money, profit. one way to do that is through volume in vehicular rural parts of the country is low. you can have more vehicles in urban regions. the last point i will make is the politics of this are obvious. time trump the first has been talking about

infrastructure. speaker pelosi and trump began negotiating on infrastructure before the house proceeded full force on impeachment. those talks collapsed. big show ofis animosity on both sides. the people i am talking to are telling me those relationships have not repaired over the years. with this talk about deaf and deficit, we will be remiss not to show the numbers from the u.s. debt clock. the current u.s. national debt is at 23 trillion $911,050,000,000 -- $23,911,050,000 and counting.

>> thanks for saying that. i agree with that. addedump administration to that. we do not hear any one talking about that. tax cuts to corporations and all that kind of stuff and they do not pay any taxes and everything goes up. i know they are frustrated. they do not want to give a lot to that stimulus because they know that trump is already $3 trillion in the red. they never talk about that. can i get your input on that? host: eugene mulero, do you want to jump in? guest: that is part of what president trump is still saying. he is saying because interest loans are -- interest rates are

low, this is the best time to borrow the money for an infrastructure plan. what i'm hearing is that the white house see in congress passed a $2 trillion spending with economic crises facilitated the thinking in the white house on transportation and infrastructure. the is something that deficit spending is something that has concerned leaders from both parties in previous years. , with the pandemic, the effort was to move plane now. one other point i want to make not -- infrastructure is it does not have a lot right now and capitol hill, congress is

still working on a highway bill. it is not a infrastructure bill. in current highway law september -- expires in september. the transportation committee in the house is suspected to unveil their version of the highway reauthorization measure. everyone is going to be looking to see how they address -- the democrats address the highway trust fund. people i'm talking to are saying there is the potential that congress is going to rely on these short-term funding fixes because they may not have time to reauthorize this highway law by the end of september. that is something that raises concerns around the transportation community. host: eugene mulero, only about a minute left with you.

other impacts of coronavirus, one thing it has done is install federal will making. in thes in the works transportation and infrastructure front that is now being put off? work right now was repairers to the ports -- repairs to the ports, long-term fixes to corridors, amtrak. aging infrastructure in railroads, especially in the northeast. structures are many decades old. around the country, states have put out a list of their projects. these are projects that are familiar to people around the country. we are talking a bridge in

bridges. some very key the one thing states and the federal government have been working on that they had to put on hold right now is traffic --gestion and the show colts in new jersey, chicago, l.a., atlanta. those projects are on hold right now while congress and the in ministration respond -- administration respond to the pandemic. host: if these issues are of interest to you, you should check out transport topics. eugene m in the meantime, stay safe. host: thanks so much. a focus