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Charles Joseph Smith

Dr. Professor

ENC 1102

03/29/2017

Final Draft

A Rhetorical Analysis of A potential pothole in Trumps infrastructure plan

Over the last couple months there has been a large heated discussion over the what the

next infrastructure policy will be. Each side of the political scene has their own view of what

infrastructure modifications, if any, should be made. These viewpoints are very distinct from

each other and each would would impact the United States in a different way. Because of this, I

chose to research the various infrastructure plans being proposed at the moment, namely

Trumps plan, the Democrats plan, and the Republicans opposition to infrastructure. Due to

the wide scope of this topic, I am focusing on a specific aspect of these propositions, that is to

say how they will affect the engineering job market. During my research, I came across the

article, A potential pothole in Trumps infrastructure plan by Cory Schouten.

A potential pothole in Trumps infrastructure plan was published exactly three weeks

after the 2016 election day, the day when Donald Trump was elected to be the forty-fifth

president of the United States. It was published by CBS, a liberal news company, in their Money

Watch section which discusses economic issues, primarily relating to the stock market. The

article was originally published online and has not been transferred to any other formats. This

article was written for the average American to understand, as opposed to an expert in a field,
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and even encourages its readers to comment or send out a tweet with a link to the article

(Schouten).

This article contains no pictures, and uses a standard font. Therefore any visual appeals

that this article contain are minimal. The only visual appeal in this article would be the CBS

logo located at the top of the page. This logo is used to create ethos for the contents of the paper.

When a reader sees the CBS logo, the reader identifies this article as coming from a reliable and

credible source. Likewise, there are also numerous links to other CBS News articles, showing

that CBS News is a credible source on many news topics (Schouten).

In Schoutens article, he argues that Trumps infrastructure plan to use primarily private

funds and some public funds to improve infrastructure does not create better infrastructure, but

rather improves the situation for the private sector. The main source of this criticism is the fact

that a large portion of the funds for this project will come from private developers. He describes

the problem with this setup in three ways. First, he argues that the developers could emphasize

the areas where they could greatly profit as opposed to the areas that need infrastructure repair.

Secondly, he argues that developers would only choose to undertake projects where there is a

perceived profit, but not necessarily where it is needed. Thirdly, he argues that economists

would say that Trumps infrastructure plan is unlikely to do much to increase the GDP of the

United States (Schouten).

Schoutens anti-Trump message appears to be in accordance with the type of audience he

is writing for. Since CBS is a liberal news station, his conclusion attracts a liberal audience. In

his article, Schouten speaks very critically of Trumps plan, which seems to be in accord with the

political alignment of both the news source and his audience. Even though his message is in
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favor of the liberal perspective, he is generous in so far that he lets his audience know the

political associations of all of his sources. Although he does attack Trumps infrastructure plan,

Schouten makes no effort to criticize the Republicans for not supporting any infrastructure

changes whatsoever.

In this article, Schouten has some valid claims and concerns. Private companies and

corporations tend to seek their own interests, because they exist to make a profit for themselves

and their employees. Despite this, Schouten never gives credence to any opposing arguments.

He never discusses any possible alternate views to his theory, not even within the context of

objections and replies (Schouten). For example, a potential objection to this argument would be

what economist Adam Smith describes as the invisible hand, wherein when business seek their

own benefit, they end up benefitting society (Smith, 29). Although Mason B. Williams of The

Atlantic echoes many of Schoutens concerns, he gives some credence to Adam Smiths

invisible hand. Williams states that cities are having much difficulty with maintaining their

infrastructure, due to a lack of funds. Williams goes on to argue that including the private sector

could provide the proper funds as well as build better infrastructure, because private

infrastructure tends to be of higher quality than publicly paid infrastructure. Williams argues

that because the private sector wants to show how well they design and manage projects, they

will often construct higher quality projects, at a lower price, ahead of schedule, than their public

funds counterparts (Williams). Overall, these objections do weaken the strength of Schoutens

article to some degree. However, none of these refute the content of Schoutens article, and

therefore the article contains a valid argument.

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Schouten does cite credible sources with the majority of his arguments. For his first

argument, he vaguely gives credit to critics which lacks a definite credible source. Although

Schouten probably has multiple credible sources in mind when he writes the term critics, not

citing or even mentioning a credible source damages Schoutens overall ethos. However, for his

second and third arguments, he cites the Economic Policy Institute and the Capital Economics

respectively, which are credible sources. Not only are they credible sources, but they are sources

from both sides of the political spectrum. In his article, Schout states that the Economic Policy

Institute is a liberal organization, and that Capital Economics is conservative. Through this,

greater credibility is lent towards Schoutens argument because people from both sides of the

debate agree with him. Unfortunately for the reader and the overall credibility of the article,

Schouten in most cases gives the name of the source from which he derived his information,

does not provide a link or a works cited page so that the audience can know from where he is

getting his information. Although Schouten is most likely honest with his sources, we cannot be

sure that both of these organizations actually have reached these conclusion. Sadly, this lack of

citations deals a damaging blow to the credibility and ethos of this article. Schouten does not

rely on appeals to emotion in his article, but rather heavily relies upon the ethos and credibility of

his sources. Overall, I believe that Cory Schouten made an effective and reasonable objection to

Trumps Infrastructure plan, that would require research and investigation to refute any of his

three arguments (Schouten).

Throughout the duration of the article, the author remains very straightforward. He

refrains from using rhetorical tools such as sarcasm or humor in his paper (Schouten). This

creates an effect that ultimately aids his ethos. While these rhetorical tools can aid a paper by
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drawing emphasis to a certain point or by connecting with the reader on a personal level, not

using these tools also has its benefits. Not using sarcasm or humor makes his article appear more

professional, which lends greater credibility to his arguments. Sarcasm also can be a dangerous

tool because a writer can more easily offend his audience if he does not use sarcasm properly.

Staying away from this tool, keeps the writer safe from running this risk.

To conclude, Schouten creates a strong and well thought out argument for his audience in

his article, A potential pothole in Trumps infrastructure plan. It is an argument that appeals to

his audience, but is still logical and is in most cases supported by the opinions of experts.

Although his arguments are logical, they are able to be disputed and can be objected to, by other

credible sources. This is definitely not a closed topic; there is still room for plenty of discussion

and debate. Even though Schouten has created a strong argument, there are still issues in terms

of credibility. Although Schouten writes for a reputable news source and states arguments from

reputable sources, he fails to provide a source for one of his main points and then fails to provide

proper citation for the remainder of his arguments. I will probably use this article in my paper

for several reasons. First, it provides insight into many of the arguments against Trumps

infrastructure plan. Secondly, through demonstrating the benefits of government funded

projects, he is providing an argument in support of the Democrats infrastructure plan. Although

the article is biased in favor of the liberalism, Schouten provides an argument in favor of

liberalism that is strong enough to stand on its own. Thirdly, it provides good background

information into the Lastly, I will include this source in my essay because the arguments he

provide can be disputed. It will allow for me to weigh the pros and cons on every side of the
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issue, and to bring in the opinions of other rhetors who have spoken on this topic to create a

well-educated conclusion.
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Works Cited:

Schouten, Cory. A potential pothole in Trumps infrastructure plan. CBSNews.com. Nov. 2016.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trumps-infrastructure-plan-has-a-potential-pothole/

Accessed March 29, 2017.

Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. 5th ed, Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1904.

Mason Williams. Would Trumps Infrastructure Plan Fix Americas Cities?. TheAtlantic.com.

Jan. 2017.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trump-infrastructure-cities/512432/

Accessed March 29, 2017.