Demosclerosis and the Fading Appeal of the Blue State Model

Interesting point from Instapundit.

He quotes Powerline discussing the government's inability to do big projects anymore:

In the old days, when the U.S. built things relatively quickly like Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge, someone actually got to make decisions. Today, I suspect the slightly authoritarian figures like Robert Moses or Frederick Law Olmstead would be arrested for their manner of public administration, or have their designs so slowed down and corrupted by ‘public input’ and review processes that we wouldn’t have Central Park. More likely we’d have 50 Zuccotti Parks scattered around New York City.

Then he writes himself:

What’s funny is that these innovations were championed by the same folks who — see, e.g., Rachel Maddow’s odd Hoover Dam bit — champion the idea of the government doing big things. Yet the end result of a government that focuses on process instead of product is a government that can’t do big things, and one in which the public has less faith. To pick an example from my neck of the woods, the TVA had its first dam filled within 18 months of the TVA Act’s passage. That could never happen today. Now arguably TVA built too many dams, but at least taxpayers who wondered where their money was going could see dams springing up all over. Now it goes into the pockets of lawyers and consultants and Environmental Impact Statement reviewers. Not surprisingly, that’s less impressive.

I immediately began looking for pictures of Freedom Tower, to see how far along in construction it was. Ten years along, this seems to be as far as we've gotten.

posted by Ace at 11:02 AM

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