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"The bulk of Trump's infrastructure agenda is to raise rates and privatize public systems," warns Grant. "Water bills would need to skyrocket to allow Wall Street to profit."
Trump has announced the details of his infrastructure plan, and it paints a frightening picture. At best, it's a money-making scam. At its worst, it endangers our families, communities and the planet.
Here are five reasons we need Congress to stop Trump's dangerous infrastructure scam:
The plan reads like a to-do list of How to Give Public Land and Water to Wall Street. The end goal: to privatize our local water systems and public services so corporations can make a profit. Meanwhile, everyday people will pay the cost: price increases, a lack of public accountability and a loss of jobs.
Many of our water systems were built a hundred years ago (that's not an exaggeration). But the government has invested less and less into keeping our infrastructure up to date -- meaning unaffordable water service rates and undrinkable tap water in places like Flint.
Selling our roads, bridges and water systems off to the highest bidder is NOT the solution.
The bulk of this agenda is to raise rates and privatize public systems. Water bills would need to skyrocket to allow Wall Street to profit, leading to unaffordable bills and more water shutoffs. Food & Water Watch has researched the price of privatization: privately owned water systems charge 59% more than publicly owned systems.
Already, more than one in ten people nationally are struggling to pay their water bills -- and the consequences can be dire. Water service can be shut off for nonpayment, leaving families without running water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, flushing toilets and washing hands. People can even lose their homes through eviction or tax sales and foreclosures because of unpaid water bills.
Trump is setting people up to fail. Maybe he's forgotten: water is a human right.
Federal assistance would not go to places that need the support, but instead, it would be prioritized to wealthier municipalities that can already pay for infrastructure projects. The only possible reason for this: this is NOT a plan designed to improve people's lives.
Low-income towns and communities of color pay higher water rates than their wealthier, whiter neighbors. And even within a community, the harm is not felt equally. Water shutoffs disproportionately affect people of color in places like Boston and Detroit. Corporate investors, driven by profit, have no reason to put money into low income and rural areas.
Trump's priorities are wrong. His plan provides no money dedicated to communities that need it most. It includes no provision that prioritizes communities with affordability or public health challenges. Trump's agenda will not help low-income cities like Flint, rural communities like Martin County, Kentucky, or other struggling communities address their water crises.
Trump's infrastructure plan will transfer wealth to rich, typically whiter, communities.
Trump is not going to increase federal funding for infrastructure; instead, his scheme relies on smoke and mirrors.
Trump provides no additional funding to the State Revolving Funds, USDA's rural water fund or any of the existing programs that provide dedicated funding for water projects or technical assistance to struggling water systems.
Federal funding for water infrastructure is at its lowest point in decades. Instead of reversing the decline, Trump's plan provides zero dollars to the highly successful Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Fund programs, which are the main source of federal support for our local water and sewer systems. Despite not increasing support to these funds, Trump seeks to open up the clean water fund to private entities. This amounts to taking away existing federal money from our local governments to give to big water corporations. That's not all. Trump intends to allow private companies to use federally subsidized WIFIA water loans to lease and outright buy public water and sewer systems.
We can expect his budget to have massive cuts to EPA and even federal water funding. Last year, Trump's budget proposed completely eliminating USDA's rural water program. Now, he wants to gut environmental protections to rush them through the permitting process.
The leaked infrastructure plan could include fracking in our national parks and offshore oil drilling. It also will provide new federal subsidies for potentially high-risk oil and gas projects. And all this because Trump thinks he can turn $200 billion into $1 trillion -- or $1.7 trillion, depending on apparently his mood-- by green lighting and fast-tracking big infrastructure and pipeline projects.
Trump's infrastructure plan is a giveaway to corporations at the expense of the public health and the environment. Communities deserve a say in how their water systems are managed, and decisions about shared essential resources such as water should be made with the public's interest in mind, not the potential profit margins of Trump's Wall Street cronies.
We need a just and equitable infrastructure plan that dedicates federal funding for public water and wastewater systems, makes corporations pay their fair share instead of burdening working and middle-class families and prioritizes vulnerable communities with the greatest affordability and public health needs.
To get to a real solution, we must resist Trump's infrastructure scam.
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Trump has announced the details of his infrastructure plan, and it paints a frightening picture. At best, it's a money-making scam. At its worst, it endangers our families, communities and the planet.
Here are five reasons we need Congress to stop Trump's dangerous infrastructure scam:
The plan reads like a to-do list of How to Give Public Land and Water to Wall Street. The end goal: to privatize our local water systems and public services so corporations can make a profit. Meanwhile, everyday people will pay the cost: price increases, a lack of public accountability and a loss of jobs.
Many of our water systems were built a hundred years ago (that's not an exaggeration). But the government has invested less and less into keeping our infrastructure up to date -- meaning unaffordable water service rates and undrinkable tap water in places like Flint.
Selling our roads, bridges and water systems off to the highest bidder is NOT the solution.
The bulk of this agenda is to raise rates and privatize public systems. Water bills would need to skyrocket to allow Wall Street to profit, leading to unaffordable bills and more water shutoffs. Food & Water Watch has researched the price of privatization: privately owned water systems charge 59% more than publicly owned systems.
Already, more than one in ten people nationally are struggling to pay their water bills -- and the consequences can be dire. Water service can be shut off for nonpayment, leaving families without running water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, flushing toilets and washing hands. People can even lose their homes through eviction or tax sales and foreclosures because of unpaid water bills.
Trump is setting people up to fail. Maybe he's forgotten: water is a human right.
Federal assistance would not go to places that need the support, but instead, it would be prioritized to wealthier municipalities that can already pay for infrastructure projects. The only possible reason for this: this is NOT a plan designed to improve people's lives.
Low-income towns and communities of color pay higher water rates than their wealthier, whiter neighbors. And even within a community, the harm is not felt equally. Water shutoffs disproportionately affect people of color in places like Boston and Detroit. Corporate investors, driven by profit, have no reason to put money into low income and rural areas.
Trump's priorities are wrong. His plan provides no money dedicated to communities that need it most. It includes no provision that prioritizes communities with affordability or public health challenges. Trump's agenda will not help low-income cities like Flint, rural communities like Martin County, Kentucky, or other struggling communities address their water crises.
Trump's infrastructure plan will transfer wealth to rich, typically whiter, communities.
Trump is not going to increase federal funding for infrastructure; instead, his scheme relies on smoke and mirrors.
Trump provides no additional funding to the State Revolving Funds, USDA's rural water fund or any of the existing programs that provide dedicated funding for water projects or technical assistance to struggling water systems.
Federal funding for water infrastructure is at its lowest point in decades. Instead of reversing the decline, Trump's plan provides zero dollars to the highly successful Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Fund programs, which are the main source of federal support for our local water and sewer systems. Despite not increasing support to these funds, Trump seeks to open up the clean water fund to private entities. This amounts to taking away existing federal money from our local governments to give to big water corporations. That's not all. Trump intends to allow private companies to use federally subsidized WIFIA water loans to lease and outright buy public water and sewer systems.
We can expect his budget to have massive cuts to EPA and even federal water funding. Last year, Trump's budget proposed completely eliminating USDA's rural water program. Now, he wants to gut environmental protections to rush them through the permitting process.
The leaked infrastructure plan could include fracking in our national parks and offshore oil drilling. It also will provide new federal subsidies for potentially high-risk oil and gas projects. And all this because Trump thinks he can turn $200 billion into $1 trillion -- or $1.7 trillion, depending on apparently his mood-- by green lighting and fast-tracking big infrastructure and pipeline projects.
Trump's infrastructure plan is a giveaway to corporations at the expense of the public health and the environment. Communities deserve a say in how their water systems are managed, and decisions about shared essential resources such as water should be made with the public's interest in mind, not the potential profit margins of Trump's Wall Street cronies.
We need a just and equitable infrastructure plan that dedicates federal funding for public water and wastewater systems, makes corporations pay their fair share instead of burdening working and middle-class families and prioritizes vulnerable communities with the greatest affordability and public health needs.
To get to a real solution, we must resist Trump's infrastructure scam.
Trump has announced the details of his infrastructure plan, and it paints a frightening picture. At best, it's a money-making scam. At its worst, it endangers our families, communities and the planet.
Here are five reasons we need Congress to stop Trump's dangerous infrastructure scam:
The plan reads like a to-do list of How to Give Public Land and Water to Wall Street. The end goal: to privatize our local water systems and public services so corporations can make a profit. Meanwhile, everyday people will pay the cost: price increases, a lack of public accountability and a loss of jobs.
Many of our water systems were built a hundred years ago (that's not an exaggeration). But the government has invested less and less into keeping our infrastructure up to date -- meaning unaffordable water service rates and undrinkable tap water in places like Flint.
Selling our roads, bridges and water systems off to the highest bidder is NOT the solution.
The bulk of this agenda is to raise rates and privatize public systems. Water bills would need to skyrocket to allow Wall Street to profit, leading to unaffordable bills and more water shutoffs. Food & Water Watch has researched the price of privatization: privately owned water systems charge 59% more than publicly owned systems.
Already, more than one in ten people nationally are struggling to pay their water bills -- and the consequences can be dire. Water service can be shut off for nonpayment, leaving families without running water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, flushing toilets and washing hands. People can even lose their homes through eviction or tax sales and foreclosures because of unpaid water bills.
Trump is setting people up to fail. Maybe he's forgotten: water is a human right.
Federal assistance would not go to places that need the support, but instead, it would be prioritized to wealthier municipalities that can already pay for infrastructure projects. The only possible reason for this: this is NOT a plan designed to improve people's lives.
Low-income towns and communities of color pay higher water rates than their wealthier, whiter neighbors. And even within a community, the harm is not felt equally. Water shutoffs disproportionately affect people of color in places like Boston and Detroit. Corporate investors, driven by profit, have no reason to put money into low income and rural areas.
Trump's priorities are wrong. His plan provides no money dedicated to communities that need it most. It includes no provision that prioritizes communities with affordability or public health challenges. Trump's agenda will not help low-income cities like Flint, rural communities like Martin County, Kentucky, or other struggling communities address their water crises.
Trump's infrastructure plan will transfer wealth to rich, typically whiter, communities.
Trump is not going to increase federal funding for infrastructure; instead, his scheme relies on smoke and mirrors.
Trump provides no additional funding to the State Revolving Funds, USDA's rural water fund or any of the existing programs that provide dedicated funding for water projects or technical assistance to struggling water systems.
Federal funding for water infrastructure is at its lowest point in decades. Instead of reversing the decline, Trump's plan provides zero dollars to the highly successful Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Fund programs, which are the main source of federal support for our local water and sewer systems. Despite not increasing support to these funds, Trump seeks to open up the clean water fund to private entities. This amounts to taking away existing federal money from our local governments to give to big water corporations. That's not all. Trump intends to allow private companies to use federally subsidized WIFIA water loans to lease and outright buy public water and sewer systems.
We can expect his budget to have massive cuts to EPA and even federal water funding. Last year, Trump's budget proposed completely eliminating USDA's rural water program. Now, he wants to gut environmental protections to rush them through the permitting process.
The leaked infrastructure plan could include fracking in our national parks and offshore oil drilling. It also will provide new federal subsidies for potentially high-risk oil and gas projects. And all this because Trump thinks he can turn $200 billion into $1 trillion -- or $1.7 trillion, depending on apparently his mood-- by green lighting and fast-tracking big infrastructure and pipeline projects.
Trump's infrastructure plan is a giveaway to corporations at the expense of the public health and the environment. Communities deserve a say in how their water systems are managed, and decisions about shared essential resources such as water should be made with the public's interest in mind, not the potential profit margins of Trump's Wall Street cronies.
We need a just and equitable infrastructure plan that dedicates federal funding for public water and wastewater systems, makes corporations pay their fair share instead of burdening working and middle-class families and prioritizes vulnerable communities with the greatest affordability and public health needs.
To get to a real solution, we must resist Trump's infrastructure scam.
"We've got the FBI patrolling the streets." said one protester. "We've got National Guard set up as a show of force. What's scarier is if we allow this."
Residents of Washington, DC over the weekend demonstrated against US President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard in their city.
As reported by NBC Washington, demonstrators gathered on Saturday at DuPont Circle and then marched to the White House to direct their anger at Trump for sending the National Guard to Washington DC, and for his efforts to take over the Metropolitan Police Department.
In an interview with NBC Washington, one protester said that it was important for the administration to see that residents weren't intimidated by the presence of military personnel roaming their streets.
"I know a lot of people are scared," the protester said. "We've got the FBI patrolling the streets. We've got National Guard set up as a show of force. What's scarier is if we allow this."
Saturday protests against the presence of the National Guard are expected to be a weekly occurrence, organizers told NBC Washington.
Hours after the march to the White House, other demonstrators began to gather at Union Station to protest the presence of the National Guard units there. Audio obtained by freelance journalist Andrew Leyden reveals that the National Guard decided to move their forces out of the area in reaction to what dispatchers called "growing demonstrations."
Even residents who didn't take part in formal demonstrations over the weekend managed to express their displeasure with the National Guard patrolling the city. According to The Washington Post, locals who spent a night on the town in the U Street neighborhood on Friday night made their unhappiness with law enforcement in the city very well known.
"At the sight of local and federal law enforcement throughout the night, people pooled on the sidewalk—watching, filming, booing," wrote the Post. "Such interactions played out again and again as the night drew on. Onlookers heckled the police as they did their job and applauded as officers left."
Trump last week ordered the National Guard into Washington, DC and tried to take control the Metropolitan Police, purportedly in order to reduce crime in the city. Statistics released earlier this year, however, showed a significant drop in crime in the nation's capital.
"Why not impose more sanctions on [Russia] and force them to agree to a cease-fire, instead of accepting that Putin won't agree to one?" asked NBC's Kristen Welker.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday was repeatedly put on the spot over the failure of US President Donald Trump to secure a cease-fire deal between Russia and Ukraine.
Rubio appeared on news programs across all major networks on Sunday morning and he was asked on all of them about Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin ending without any kind of agreement to end the conflict with Ukraine, which has now lasted for more than three years.
During an interview on ABC's "This Week," Rubio was grilled by Martha Raddatz about the purported "progress" being made toward bringing the war to a close. She also zeroed in on Trump's own statements saying that he wanted to see Russia agree to a cease-fire by the end of last week's summit.
"The president went in to that meeting saying he wanted a ceasefire, and there would be consequences if they didn't agree on a ceasefire in that meeting, and they didn't agree to a ceasefire," she said. "So where are the consequences?"
"That's not the aim of this," Rubio replied. "First of all..."
"The president said that was the aim!" Raddatz interjected.
"Yeah, but you're not going to reach a cease-fire or a peace agreement in a meeting in which only one side is represented," Rubio replied. "That's why it's important to bring both leaders together, that's the goal here."
RADDATZ: The president went in to that meeting saying he wanted a ceasefire and there would be consequences if they didn't agree on a ceasefire in that meeting, and they didn't agree to a ceasefire. So where are the consequences?
RUBIO: That's not the aim
RADDATZ: The president… pic.twitter.com/fuO9q1Y5ze
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 17, 2025
Rubio also made an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," where host Margaret Brennan similarly pressed him about the expectations Trump had set going into the summit.
"The president told those European leaders last week he wanted a ceasefire," she pointed out. "He went on television and said he would walk out of the meeting if Putin didn't agree to one, he said there would be severe consequences if he didn't agree to one. He said he'd walk out in two minutes—he spent three hours talking to Vladimir Putin and he did not get one. So there's mixed messages here."
"Our goal is not to stage some production for the world to say, 'Oh, how dramatic, he walked out,'" Rubio shot back. "Our goal is to have a peace agreement to end this war, OK? And obviously we felt, and I agreed, that there was enough progress, not a lot of progress, but enough progress made in those talks to allow us to move to the next phase."
Rubio then insisted that now was not the time to hit Russia with new sanctions, despite Trump's recent threats to do so, because it would end talks all together.
Brennan: The president told those European leaders last week he wanted a ceasefire. He went on television and said he would walk out of the meeting if Putin didn't agree to one, he said there would be severe consequences if he didn’t agree to one. He spent three hours talking to… pic.twitter.com/2WtuDH5Oii
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 17, 2025
During an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," host Kristen Welker asked Rubio about the "severe consequences" Trump had promised for Russia if it did not agree to a cease-fire.
"Why not impose more sanctions on [Russia] and force them to agree to a cease-fire, instead of accepting that Putin won't agree to one?" Welker asked.
"Well, first, that's something that I think a lot of people go around saying that I don't necessarily think is true," he replied. "I don't think new sanctions on Russia are going to force them to accept a cease-fire. They are already under severe sanctions... you can argue that could be a consequence of refusing to agree to a cease-fire or the end of hostilities."
He went on to say that he hoped the US would not be forced to put more sanctions on Russia "because that means peace talks failed."
WELKER: Why not impose more sanctions on Russia and force them to agree to a ceasefire, instead of accepting that Putin won't agree to one?
RUBIO: Well, I think that's something people go around saying that I don't necessarily think is true. I don't think new sanctions on Russia… pic.twitter.com/GoIucsrDmA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 17, 2025
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said that he could end the war between Russian and Ukraine within the span of a single day. In the seven months since his inauguration, the war has only gotten more intense as Russia has stepped up its daily attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
"I had to protect my life and my family... my truck was shot three times," said the vehicle's driver.
A family in San Bernardino, California is in shock after masked federal agents opened fire on their truck.
As NBC Los Angeles reported, Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agents on Saturday morning surrounded the family's truck and demanded that its passengers exit the vehicle.
A video of the incident filmed from inside the truck showed the passengers asked the agents to provide identification, which they declined to do.
An agent was then heard demanding that the father, who had been driving the truck, get out of the vehicle. Seconds later, the agent started smashing the car's windows in an attempt to get inside the vehicle.
The father then hit the gas to try to escape, after which several shots could be heard as agents opened fire. Local news station KTLA reported that, after the father successfully fled the scene, he called local police and asked for help because "masked men" had opened fire on his truck.
Looks like, for the first time I'm aware of, masked agents opened fire today, in San Bernardino. Sources posted below: pic.twitter.com/eE1GMglECg
— Eric Levai (@ericlevai) August 17, 2025
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defended the agents' actions in a statement to NBC Los Angeles.
"In the course of the incident the suspect drove his car at the officers and struck two CBP officers with his vehicle," they said. "Because of the subjects forcing a CBP officer to discharge his firearm in self-defense."
But the father, who only wished to be identified as "Francisco," pointed out that the agents refused to identify themselves and presented no warrants to justify the search of his truck.
"I had to protect my life and my family," he explained to NBC Los Angeles. "My truck was shot three times."
His son-in-law, who only wished to be identified as "Martin," was similarly critical of the agents' actions.
"Its just upsetting that it happened to us," he said. "I am glad my brother is okay, Pop is okay, but it's just not cool that [immigration enforcement officials are] able to do something like that."
According to KTLA, federal agents surrounded the family's house later that afternoon and demanded that the father come out so that he could be arrested. He refused, and agents eventually departed from the neighborhood without detaining him.
Local advocacy group Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice said on its Instagram page that it was "mobilizing to provide legal support" for the family.