5 ms·
Investing in large infrastructure projects is a political deadend in American democracy with term limits. A politician needs to expend their political and finan
by fatjokes 5y ago
Investing in large infrastructure projects is a political deadend in American democracy with term limits. A politician needs to expend their political and financial capital on a project that won't complete until well after their term is done, at which point the fickle electorate will associate the success with whoever is in power at the time.
I'm just bitter about the tunnels into NY Penn Station.
- ramesh31 5y ago>Investing in large infrastructure projects is a political deadend in American democracy with term limits. Nonsense. We built the transcontinental railroad, the interstate system, and the biggest dams and bridges in the world with term limits. The problem comes down to vested interests. Those things were done when the US still had free land. But in a democracy that respects individual rights and private property, you now end up with an inability to do things for the greater good like an autocratic China can still do on a whim.
- alpha_squared 5y agoPublic works projects now take much longer and are much costlier than they used to be in the US. None of those projects you've listed could be completed today for both of those reasons.
- clairity 5y agowhile overly cynical, yes, term limits do have such adverse effects. perhaps we could rather have yearly (electronic) reconfirmation votes (negative result triggers a full election), fixed publicly-funded campaign budgets (with temp staff completely separate from governance staff), and a rejection of corporate influence (i.e., citizens united) in elections. that would still hold politicians accountable to the people (not corps), but not impose hard and somewhat arbitrary limits.
- bluGill 5y agoThat all sounds good, but when you look at the details you discover it is worse than what we have.