President Donald Trump plans to start the new year with a major push on infrastructure, and that's big news for Texas, which leads the nation in growth, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The current proposal includes spending at least $200 billion on projects over the next decade, but that's only part of the process. Chuck DeVore, Vice President of National Initiatives with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, says the Trump plan comes at the funding in a different way.
The president is not throwing money at states with strings attached."What president trump wants to do that's different is use an incentive structure to get more private money put into infrastructure," he tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
DeVore is quick to say that does not mean more toll roads, although they could be in the mix.
New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the Texas population has surged past 28-million. State Demographer Lloyd Potter says it is not just from people moving here.
"We have a very healthy rate of natural increase, meaning more births than deaths," he tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI. "That accounts for more than half of the population change we saw this past year."
The Texas population, which sits at 28,304,596, is second only to California, which boats 39,536,653 residents. That means an increase demand for things like road and highway improvement and bridge upgrades.
Infrastructure spending was something that then-candidate Donald Trump talked about on the campaign trail. He promised a $1 trillion plan within his first 100 days in office, but that was delayed by battles over heath care and tax reform
."I actually wanted to save the easy one for the one down the road," Trump said earlier this month from the oval office.