... the countries that build public transit well, quickly, & cheaply all have something in common: most of the work is done by the government itself, using in-house expertise, rather than farming various parts out to private companies under the bullshit theory that private always = more efficient.

In other words, a robust, respected, well-paid, well-staffed bureaucracy is the key to accomplishing large-scale public works project on time and under budget. Cutting public agencies to the bone & farming out their responsibilities to the private sector *doesn't work*.

Those Scandinavian countries we all admire? Here's their secret: their private sector is private, their public sector is public. Their markets tend to be more free & less regulated than US markets. Conversely, their public works projects are *public*, planned & executed by public agencies.

In the US, almost everything is a shitty, inefficient mix of the two. The private sector is overregulated & the tax code is a f'ing nightmare of complexity. On the other side, the public sector is unerstaffed & underfunded, forced to farm out key work to parasitic private consultants.

The result is shitty performance on both sides: a corrupt & rent-seeking private sector that's not growing as fast as it could, and an ineffective, hapless public sector that systematically underperforms & drains public trust. It sucks. It benefits no one but the oligarchs.