Can Government Build Things Again?

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Jewish World Review

Michael Barone

June 24, 2022

Give the New York Times's Ezra Klein credit for identifying a problem with big government institutions. "Our mechanisms of governance have become so risk averse that they are now running tremendous risks because of the problems they cannot, or will not, solve," he tweeted. The subject was San Francisco's attempt to make permanent the parklets, or parking spaces used as outdoor restaurant space, through 60 pages of regulations.

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Some historical perspective: The Second Avenue subway was first proposed in 1920. Construction began in 1972. The first three stations were opened in 2017. Compare with New York's first subway: The contract was put up for bids in November 1899. Construction began in March 1900. The first train ran and 20-some stations were opened on New Year's Day in 1904.

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The solutions were welfare work requirements, pushed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and accepted by former President Bill Clinton, and the crime control policing reforms pushed so effectively by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and, in his wake, by many others.

We're still waiting for a third wave. Former President Donald Trump, the repairer of the Wollman Rink, seemed like a natural for infrastructure reform, but he never got engaged in the details, while Democrats were fixated on using the Russia collusion hoax to force him out of office.

Now we have an Amtrak fan as president who wants to subsidize money-losing fixed rail, even though private bus companies showed pre-COVID-19 that they could provide intercity transportation for many more people at lower monetary and environmental costs — and as launching rockets becomes a contest between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, with NASA on the sidelines. While the public sector is bogged down, the private sector seems to be forging ahead.

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