Indeed, while the Trump administration awarded $900 million in BUILD grants in the 2019 fiscal year, Minnesota didn't receive a single dime of funding. In all, more than one-quarter of BUILD funding -- a total of more than $239 million -- was funneled to these six states alone. The use of taxpayer funding to -- as Cornell University professor Douglas Kriner put it to APM -- "[r]eward your allies and punish your enemies" isn't new. The need for this assistance was created by the Trump administration's own erratic trade policies. The Trump administration may see no problem with shortchanging Minnesotans to reward its political allies, but I refuse to let that happen on my watch.

Source: CNN January 30, 2020 14:26 UTC