... It boils down to a giant public subsidy to developers and investors, who would receive generous tax credits in return for taking on the job. Which means the rest of us would have to pay higher taxes or get fewer services to make up for the taxes the developers and investors would no longer pay.

For example, in one version I’ve seen, for every $1 developers put into a project, they’d actually pay only 18 cents (after tax credits), and taxpayers would contribute the other 82 cents through their tax dollars.

. . .

The public would also pay a second time. The developers would own the roads and bridges and other pieces of infrastructure they finance. They’d then charge members of the public tolls and fees to use them.

. . .

These tolls and fees won’t come cheap. They’d have to be set high to satisfy the profit margins demanded by the developers and the investors who back them.

Worst of all, we’d get the wrong kind of infrastructure. Projects that will be most attractive to developers and investors are those with tolls and fees that bring in the biggest bucks — giant mega-projects like major new throughways and new bridges.

Developers and investors won’t be interested in the thousands of smaller bridges, airports, pipes and water treatment facilities across the country that are most in need of repair. . . .