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> The main issue is that water system maintenance in the US is funded by the locality Isn't that a good argument that it should be run by the state government

> The main issue is that water system maintenance in the US is funded by the locality Isn't that a good argument that it should be run by the state government instead? Local government in the US has so much power, compared to many other countries. It makes you wonder if that's a mistake, and if greater centralisation would produce better outcomes.

runako 4y ago
Almost certainly yes (and one could similarly make a good argument for federalizing a lot of our services). However, having services run by larger jurisdictions is directly at odds with the American need to ensure that the "haves" have distinctly better living conditions than the "have nots," and so this is a political non-starter. Put another way: poor services (such as healthcare, schools, and even potable water) are a design feature, not a bug, of American civics.
- com2kid 4y ago
  The other issue is state governments can also direct funds away from cities to the state legislators favorite pet projects. Look at the decades of underfunding of NYC's transit system for examples.
eschaton 4y ago
The problem is that there has been over a century and a half of histrionic propaganda within the United States asserting that government can’t do anything right, government and regulation are the root of all societal problems, the only proper role for government is to preserve property rights, and so on, starting around the late 1840s for some reason. So there have been multiple generations of Americans who have marinated in this their entire lives, resulting in large populations who assume more local control is always better, people only deserve what they can afford themselves individually, and so on—and entire societal systems built atop the ensuing systematic deprivation. At the same time, there’s also an almost North Korean degree of jingoistic “we’re the pinnacle of human achievement” nationalism so any change to the status quo is opposed even by those who would directly benefit because they don’t really believe it’s possible for things to be any better. After all, if they could be, they would be, because We’re The Best! So if things are bad, well, they’re worse everywhere else so quit complaining. This is why Americans get such culture shock going elsewhere in the world. They see that others can actually have a society that’s just as good or better, and they have to figure out how to integrate that into their worldview. TL;DR: Many things in the US stay as bad as they do because multiple generations have been brainwashed into thinking they’re the best they can be.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  So naturally, when people prefer a certain policy, it must be because they've been "marinated" in it, and "brainwashed"? And it's "an almost North Korean degree of jingoistic .. nationalism"? It can't be that they made up their own minds? You've just illustrated why so many people dislike "the elites". The public are adults. They decide what's in their interests and what isn't, even if it isn't what you think it should be.
  - noasaservice 4y ago
    > And it's "an almost North Korean degree of jingoistic .. nationalism"? It can't be that they made up their own minds? In the fifth grade, I was sent home as punishment for not saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" in public school. It's always been about brainwashing. Always has. > You've just illustrated why so many people dislike "the elites". The public are adults. They decide what's in their interests and what isn't, even if it isn't what you think it should be. I've seen what an adult is. "You've been alive for 18 years". That's it. No knowledge checks. No requirement of anything, really. And your response cements this pervasive idea that "My ignorant opinion is worth just as much as your well studied scientific opinion". That's what our society is facing right now, on every public forum.
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      Way to double down on the elitism. I'm so sorry that happened to you. Your "well studied scientific opinion" is nothing more than propaganda of a more refined form. Or at least it flatters you to call it "refined."
      - dang 4y ago
        Please don't post in the flamewar style, and please edit swipes out of your comments here. We've had to ask you this before. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - em-bee 4y ago
ab_testing 4y ago
> Isn't that a good argument that it should be run by the state government instead? Sometimes, the state has other skewed motives and will spend the money received from federal governement for unintended causes. This happened in Missouri as well. Mississippi used welfare money for needy families to pay Brett Favre for motivational speeches https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mississippi-welfare-money-brett-favre-motivational-speeches https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mississippi-welfare-...
- skissane 4y ago
  Do other developed countries have these kinds of problems? I get the impression that governments in the US are unusually corrupt, at least by the standards of the English-speaking world.
  - kevin_nisbet 4y ago
    I'm not fully following the situation in the US, so I don't know if it's a fair comparison or not. But I have seen some issues north of the border here in Canada over my lifetime. I think there are reports of bad water fairly often in First Nations communities, but I haven't followed the topic too closely. Some recent information: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first-nations-water-drinking-settlement-1.6382206 https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first-nations-water-drink... And another one I sort of remember more than 20 years ago was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak But these seem to pale in comparison to the limited stories I've heard out of the US. The Flint water crisis, and some of the poorer communities in the US. I do believe water systems are incredibly expensive infrastructure, even for those of us living next to the great lakes.
    - skissane 4y ago
      I was looking for anything objective to back up my impressions and I found the 2021 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index – https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021 Looking at major English speaking countries – New Zealand comes 1st as least corrupt country in world (equal with Denmark and Finland); UK is 11th; Canada and Ireland are equal 13th (along with Austria, Estonia and Iceland); Australia is equal 18th (with Belgium, Japan and Uruguay). The US is equal 27th, with Chile. So yes, among major English-speaking countries, the US is the most corrupt.
ElevenLathe 4y ago
The Flint crisis started while the city was being run by a state-appointed emergency manager, not an elected Mayor.
- manv1 4y ago
  Not true. Water maintenance problems start years before. I don't remember the details, but at some point Flint changed its water supplier over the protests of the water bureau. Different water -> different chemical composition -> more leaching (wikipedia says it was in 2014).
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    The change happened with the emergency manager in place and was signed off by the state government. Moreover, the change was TO Detroit water and Detroit was also being run by the state at the time.
dmix 4y ago
Canada is even more federalized than the US in many ways and it works great. It's something that is strongly defended politically and culturally (provinces control things like healthcare insurance). Municipalities are also very powerful.

runako 4y ago

Almost certainly yes (and one could similarly make a good argument for federalizing a lot of our services). However, having services run by larger jurisdictions is directly at odds with the American need to ensure that the "haves" have distinctly better living conditions than the "have nots," and so this is a political non-starter. Put another way: poor services (such as healthcare, schools, and even potable water) are a design feature, not a bug, of American civics.

com2kid 4y ago
The other issue is state governments can also direct funds away from cities to the state legislators favorite pet projects. Look at the decades of underfunding of NYC's transit system for examples.

eschaton 4y ago

The problem is that there has been over a century and a half of histrionic propaganda within the United States asserting that government can’t do anything right, government and regulation are the root of all societal problems, the only proper role for government is to preserve property rights, and so on, starting around the late 1840s for some reason. So there have been multiple generations of Americans who have marinated in this their entire lives, resulting in large populations who assume more local control is always better, people only deserve what they can afford themselves individually, and so on—and entire societal systems built atop the ensuing systematic deprivation. At the same time, there’s also an almost North Korean degree of jingoistic “we’re the pinnacle of human achievement” nationalism so any change to the status quo is opposed even by those who would directly benefit because they don’t really believe it’s possible for things to be any better. After all, if they could be, they would be, because We’re The Best! So if things are bad, well, they’re worse everywhere else so quit complaining. This is why Americans get such culture shock going elsewhere in the world. They see that others can actually have a society that’s just as good or better, and they have to figure out how to integrate that into their worldview. TL;DR: Many things in the US stay as bad as they do because multiple generations have been brainwashed into thinking they’re the best they can be.

AlbertCory 4y ago
So naturally, when people prefer a certain policy, it must be because they've been "marinated" in it, and "brainwashed"? And it's "an almost North Korean degree of jingoistic .. nationalism"? It can't be that they made up their own minds? You've just illustrated why so many people dislike "the elites". The public are adults. They decide what's in their interests and what isn't, even if it isn't what you think it should be.
- noasaservice 4y ago
  > And it's "an almost North Korean degree of jingoistic .. nationalism"? It can't be that they made up their own minds? In the fifth grade, I was sent home as punishment for not saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" in public school. It's always been about brainwashing. Always has. > You've just illustrated why so many people dislike "the elites". The public are adults. They decide what's in their interests and what isn't, even if it isn't what you think it should be. I've seen what an adult is. "You've been alive for 18 years". That's it. No knowledge checks. No requirement of anything, really. And your response cements this pervasive idea that "My ignorant opinion is worth just as much as your well studied scientific opinion". That's what our society is facing right now, on every public forum.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    Way to double down on the elitism. I'm so sorry that happened to you. Your "well studied scientific opinion" is nothing more than propaganda of a more refined form. Or at least it flatters you to call it "refined."
    - dang 4y ago
      Please don't post in the flamewar style, and please edit swipes out of your comments here. We've had to ask you this before. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - em-bee 4y ago

ab_testing 4y ago

> Isn't that a good argument that it should be run by the state government instead? Sometimes, the state has other skewed motives and will spend the money received from federal governement for unintended causes. This happened in Missouri as well. Mississippi used welfare money for needy families to pay Brett Favre for motivational speeches https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mississippi-welfare-money-brett-favre-motivational-speeches https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mississippi-welfare-...

skissane 4y ago
Do other developed countries have these kinds of problems? I get the impression that governments in the US are unusually corrupt, at least by the standards of the English-speaking world.
- kevin_nisbet 4y ago
  I'm not fully following the situation in the US, so I don't know if it's a fair comparison or not. But I have seen some issues north of the border here in Canada over my lifetime. I think there are reports of bad water fairly often in First Nations communities, but I haven't followed the topic too closely. Some recent information: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first-nations-water-drinking-settlement-1.6382206 https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first-nations-water-drink... And another one I sort of remember more than 20 years ago was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak But these seem to pale in comparison to the limited stories I've heard out of the US. The Flint water crisis, and some of the poorer communities in the US. I do believe water systems are incredibly expensive infrastructure, even for those of us living next to the great lakes.
  - skissane 4y ago
    I was looking for anything objective to back up my impressions and I found the 2021 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index – https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021 Looking at major English speaking countries – New Zealand comes 1st as least corrupt country in world (equal with Denmark and Finland); UK is 11th; Canada and Ireland are equal 13th (along with Austria, Estonia and Iceland); Australia is equal 18th (with Belgium, Japan and Uruguay). The US is equal 27th, with Chile. So yes, among major English-speaking countries, the US is the most corrupt.

ElevenLathe 4y ago

The Flint crisis started while the city was being run by a state-appointed emergency manager, not an elected Mayor.

manv1 4y ago
Not true. Water maintenance problems start years before. I don't remember the details, but at some point Flint changed its water supplier over the protests of the water bureau. Different water -> different chemical composition -> more leaching (wikipedia says it was in 2014).
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  The change happened with the emergency manager in place and was signed off by the state government. Moreover, the change was TO Detroit water and Detroit was also being run by the state at the time.

dmix 4y ago

Canada is even more federalized than the US in many ways and it works great. It's something that is strongly defended politically and culturally (provinces control things like healthcare insurance). Municipalities are also very powerful.