President Trump’s road test: Can he reach across the aisle and deliver?

On Tuesday, President Trump will set Twitter aside for a few hours to address a joint session of Congress. He might not know it yet, but this is a test drive. This is his chance to show whether he has any intention of delivering on the promises he made to invest in America, create jobs, and to work with Democrats in Congress to get it all done.

It’s a test drive because Trump has not been too keen to share the road with Democrats thus far. He’s been in his own lane on the far right with extremely partisan choices like former Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as Attorney General, school choice advocate Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, and executive orders that start the process of rolling back the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank Act, immigration regulations, and the like.

This helps explain the 53 percent of Americans who already disapprove of their new president — a record high for a one-month-old administration. Nonetheless, millions are still waiting to see if he can get back on course and create jobs and improve the economy.

{mosads}So what could President Trump possibly do to open up a lane for Democrats and reach Americans in struggling counties across the nation who took a gamble on him? The answer is infrastructure. But will he show a real commitment to infrastructure spending — or can we only expect more bluster and empty promises?

Trump’s campaign and victory speeches emphasized his commitment to rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure. Senate Democrats responded last month with a comprehensive infrastructure package that reaches the President’s $1 trillion investment goal through public spending. Almost three in four Americans want to see more direct investment in infrastructure, too, saying we need to make these investments to benefit our economy. Coalitions of economists, policymakers, and business leaders have come together to advocate for a federal infrastructure package.

In the current political climate, when do we actually see this level of consensus? Answer: not often, and we can’t afford to let this opportunity pass us by.

But where the rubber meets the road, Trump’s version relies almost entirely on tax incentives for private firms, rather than any direct and long-term investment of federal dollars. When it comes to repairing, rebuilding, and transforming our nation’s infrastructure, as we heard our president promise to do during his campaign, this plan just doesn’t get the job done.

In a recent report, my colleague Emily Liner and I spell out why public spending on infrastructure — and not just tax cuts for private investors — is critical for our nation’s economy, and why we need to do this now. As we explain, putting off maintenance is costing us in the short run and will cost us big in the long run. The payoffs of investing now, on the other hand, are huge. Public spending on infrastructure creates good middle-class jobs with low barriers to entry, which could help put many currently out of the labor force back to work. It also jumpstarts the formation of new businesses that are critical for leading innovation and creating more jobs in a wide range of sectors.

We need to invest in maintenance and expansion of public transportation infrastructure — things we can’t depend on private firms to invest in on their own — to connect millions of working families to the jobs and opportunities they so desperately need. We need to dramatically improve our export infrastructure — freight rails, highways, and ports — so we can access emerging markets abroad and get more American-made products onto foreign shelves.

Continuing to procrastinate just costs American families more now and makes infrastructure projects more expensive later. We can still save big by investing now. But these and other benefits are only going to come about if an infrastructure package includes serious and sustained public investment.

One way or another, public spending needs to play a key role in rebuilding and modernizing American infrastructure. President Trump needs to lead Republicans in coming to the table with Democrats to hash out a real, comprehensive infrastructure plan that delivers the jobs and economic boost Americans are waiting for.

The question going into Tuesday is whether President Trump will share the road or say “my way or the highway.” That is why Tuesday’s address represents a true test of his leadership and sincerity. And Trump is in the driver’s seat.

Rachael Stephens is the economic program fellow at Third Way, a Washington-based public policy think tank founded in 2005. Stephens recently completed her Master’s in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.