President Donald Trump will be across the river from Kentucky today to promote his infrastructure plan.
And if Trump’s previous remarks are any indication, the plan could be heavily influenced by a Kentuckian who’s been dead for 165 years.
In the early 19th century, Kentucky congressman and later senator Henry Clay proposed a system of high taxes on imported goods to fund improvements like roads, canals and bridges. Trump has compared his own philosophy of protectionism to Clay’s.
But a lot has changed about the world since Clay’s devised his “American System.”