'Prioritize What Comes First': Governor Ahead Of State Of The Union
DENVER (CBS4) - Gov. John Hickenlooper spoke about Tuesday night's State of the Union Address and focused on infrastructure.
Hickenlooper worries Colorado's transportation funding deficit could grow with President Donald Trump's draft on an infrastructure plan.
Hickenlooper says the plan is a dramatic change from any kind of major infrastructure project Colorado has ever done.
The president's draft plan calls for flipping the funding formula of 80 percent of federal funding and 20 percent from from state dollars.
The draft also proposes half of federal infrastructure dollars to be doled out as competitive grants, and only states willing to invest more money themselves would be eligible.
The governor says he believes leadership in both houses understand they're going to have to step forward with some state money without going overboard which could mean re-prioritizing projects already on the books.
"We're going to have to sit down, roll up our sleeves, and look at all sources of revenue. We have to prioritize what comes first, and maybe we don't know things as fast as we need," said Hickenlooper. "We're going to have to sit down with the smartest minds and have representatives from local government, state government, federal government and public/private partnership part of it, and say 'how far can we go with the resources we have?' because I don't think anyone is going to suddenly come up with a bunch of new money.
CBS4 asked the governor what he hopes to hear in the president's speech, and he wouldn't lay out any specific expectations. All he said was he thinks the country is ready to have a leader that's focused on bringing us back together.