California Confusion

California, the can't do state:

when it comes to building things, California is not only not competitive with Texas, but it’s also not competitive with India, an actual, real-life Third World country. Once the economic engine that drove the nation, California is now an anchor, dragging everyone and everything down with it into the mire. All of that said, it’s probably not fair to single out California here. These days, no American state—no city, no county, not even the federal government—could build a high-speed railroad on budget and on schedule. The federal government, with its massive military budget, struggles to build ships. Heck, it struggles even to maintain the ones it has. America just doesn’t build things or complete large, complex projects anymore. Or at least it doesn’t do them well or effectively. We used to build things, but we don’t anymore. Once upon a time—and not that long ago—we built the greatest system of roads ever known to man, spanning the entire continent, east-to-west and north-to-south. Now, the interstate system would never even be started, much less finished. Somehow, sometime along the way, American governments at all levels lost their ability to do or build much of anything. The biggest part of the problem here can be summed up in one word: “bureaucracy.” Now, I know that just two weeks ago, in these very pages, I wrote that “For all the criticism it receives, bureaucracy remains the most rational and effective organizational structure known to man for the effective and efficient operation of large systems.” While this remains inarguably true, American government bureaucracy seems not to operate at all. It appears irrational, ineffective, and, at times, totally dysfunctional. But why? The good news is that the problem with American bureaucracy is actually fairly easily diagnosed. The bad news is that this “problem” is entrenched in American administrative practice and is unlikely to be excised without concerted and prolonged effort.

Good luck with that in the former Golden State...