The evaporation of loan volume after January 20 this year is not mysterious — Trump’s OMB pause on federal loan and grants.

But what about the much bigger and more persistent decline during the second half of the Biden term?

It’s bad enough by self-referential federal program standards. But it’s worse in a real-world context. Even if WIFIA annual loan volume had stayed at its 2021 peak, the Program’s share of US water capex would have fallen from 17% to 11% by 2025:

WTF is happening? More importantly, what should stakeholders, advocacy groups and policymakers be doing about it?

Not this: