What do U.S. voters want?

A new poll commissioned by the Alliance for American Manufacturing – a labor and Steelworkers ally – has a succinct answer: Four-fifths want U.S.-made rebuilding of our subways, roads and bridges. Nine percent don’t.

And what don’t they want? Except for Republicans, they don’t want GOP President Donald Trump’s Mexican Wall.

The survey in late March of 1,200 registered voters came just before Trump traveled to Texas to tout pipeline construction. The only catch to his claim is voters want infrastructure work, it hasn’t happened, says AAM Executive Director Scott Paul.

“Big bipartisan majorities say repairing crumbling roads, bridges, water systems, and more is a top policy priority — and these folks support #BuyAmerica, too,” Paul tweeted after the poll, which AAM commissioned, was released during the week of April 10.

But voters say they’ve haven’t heard Trump – or Congress – on rebuilding U.S. infrastructure. Slight majorities of voters (54%) heard nothing from Trump or congressional Democrats. Even more (63%) say they haven’t heard a peep from the congressional GOP.

The new Democratic majority in the U.S. House has opened hearings on whether and how to spend $1 trillion or more to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads, unsafe bridges, creaky subways, outdated airports and aging rail lines. Congressional Republicans await Trump’s move. And Trump keeps promising to deliver a $1 trillion private-public plan, but hasn’t.

That doesn’t sit well with voters, or with union members.

Some 3,000 construction union members made public infrastructure investment their #1 cause on Capitol Hill on April 9-10. They demanded “Congress pass a robust infrastructure investment package, promote workforce development, and uphold strong labor standards for working families,” North America’s Building Trades said.

Such infrastructure projects could produce tens of thousands of construction and factory jobs, a point one construction union leader at the conference, the Laborers’ Terry O’Sullivan, emphasized. So did the poll. By a 77%-28% margin, poll respondents agreed with O’Sullivan, as did 82% of unionists.

“While Congress has long talked about fixing our infrastructure, they have failed to act,” said O’Sullivan. “It’s time to begin.” He suggested solons start by crafting a new long-term federal highway/mass transit bill, “the main resource for transportation infrastructure.”

When they do, they’ll find voters agreeing with that aim, the joint survey by a Democratic and a Republican pollster found. Its specifics included:

• 81% of registered voters listed repairing and replacing crumbling infrastructure as their top priority for Trump and Congress. Only 9% opposed it.
• By an 80%-15% margin, with 55% in strong support, voters mandated “Buy America” laws. By 74%-19%, voters would apply those laws to privately financed infrastructure projects, too – even if Buy America increases the cost.
• 76% want U.S. firms and U.S. workers to use U.S.-made products to build U.S. infrastructure projects, and 61% feel strongly about that. By contrast, 17% want to award projects to the lowest bidder “regardless of where the bidder gets their products from.

Infrastructure investment is a tri-partisan first in voters’ priorities, drawing 85% of Democrats, 84% of Republicans and 73% of independents. Trump’s wall at the Mexican border, which critics call racist, ineffective or both, finished dead last. Only 34% of voters – 7% of Democrats, 22% of independents and 69% of Republicans – favored it.

Everything else finished in between: Clean energy to battle climate change (58% overall; 83% Democratic, 60% independent, 28% GOP), Medicare For All (57%, 83%, 57%, 26%), stricter gun control (54%, 80%, 50%, 26%) and “negotiating better trade deals to level the playing field with China” (50%, 36%, 50%, 66%) were priorities of at least half the voters.

The GOP/Trump platform of cutting taxes and regulations “to help business compete with foreign countries” (49%, 33%, 46%, 70%), tighter border security and immigration enforcement (46%, 19%, 48%, 84%) and Trump’s Mexican Wall, trailed. The poll had a margin of error of +/- 2.8%.

The pollsters did not ask voters if they would support a gas tax hike to pay for infrastructure investment. The federal gas tax, which funds both highway and mass transit construction, has been stuck at 18 cents a gallon since 1994. Building trades unions and the Amalgamated Transit Union favor increasing the tax to pay for the projects. Citing wins in state and local referendums to raise those gas taxes and dedicate the money to infrastructure, they say voters agree.

The question America must ask is not ‘Can we afford to increase the gas tax?’ but rather, ‘How can we afford not to?’" ATU President Larry Hanley says. He, like O’Sullivan, pushed for a long-term, well-funded federal mass transit-highway funding law.

We should not wait until another bridge falls down, like it did in Minnesota a few years ago, to act,” Hanley said. “We should not wait for another passenger to be stranded because their bus went out of service because the system didn’t have the money to fix it or buy a new one. Let’s not wait for another tragedy to occur. Let’s be proactive and pass a strong, multi-year surface transportation bill this year.