7 ms·

I imagine a lot of the cost & time for public projects is precisely because they have to be contracted out to private developers. If the government had construc

by ahoy 4y ago

I imagine a lot of the cost & time for public projects is precisely because they have to be contracted out to private developers. If the government had construction workers & equipment on it's own payroll (like we do for police, postal workers, sanitation, etc), these projects probably get done a lot quicker. It would have the bonus effect of making infrastructure construction/maintenance projects happen more often. Both by lower the barrier to get started (no need to have contractors bid your project, etc) and b/c it's wasteful to have public employees just sitting around with no work to do.

nonethewiser 4y ago
> I imagine a lot of the cost & time for public projects is precisely because they have to be contracted out to private developers. But private companies have to contract out to private developers. ALDIs doesn’t have a construction division.
londons_explore 4y ago
Many governmental organisations do have their own employees for this sort of thing. I'm not sure it results in projects being cheaper or quicker overall.
- throwawaysleep 4y ago
  Probably cheaper, but with abysmal quality. I used to be a public sector dev with an agency that stores plaintext passwords and direct deposit information. People simply didn’t know any better and because government doesn’t have merit raises, the rest of us simply didn’t do anything about it.
  - Arainach 4y ago
    That may be true in software (where the pay gap in the private sector is particularly blatant) but it's not true in most industries. The stereotype of lazy government workers is essentially conservative propaganda - I've known and worked with plenty, and with a few obvious exceptions (political appointees, software, etc.) across the board they're passionate and great at what they do. Civil engineers, road builders, park rangers, EPA researchers, administrative assistants, even IT.
    - briandear 4y ago
      Conservative propaganda? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-room https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-roo... And have you ever been to a government office to pull a permit? Or dealt with government procurement? Or attempted to get paperwork through the FAA? And your experience with who you’ve worked with isn’t data by the way.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        Have you ever tried to get google to give you information you need? It's not any easier.
      - mrguyorama 4y ago
        My girlfriend works public service. The only lazy coworkers she has are Ron Swanson types taking it upon themselves to make public work shittier because they believe the government shouldn't do anything.
      - gamblor956 4y ago
        And have you ever been to a government office to pull a permit? Or dealt with government procurement? Or attempted to get paperwork through the FAA? Yes. It was relatively straightforward, as long as you followed the rules. The hard part is following all the relevant rules, almost all of which exist because people have tried to rip off the government or lawmakers decided to impose unrelated requirements on procurement. That's not the fault of the government workers whose job it is to carry out the requirements that have been imposed on them. And what does an opinion piece about teachers have to do with procurement? Those are completely separate things.
        dsfyu404ed 4y ago
        >Yes. It was relatively straightforward, as long as you followed the rules. The hard part is not going postal as you find out piece by piece that person A didn't tell you about rule X and that department T actually has a revised form W that... and on and on until you find out that you didn't actually have to do any of that because there's some other less shitty process none of these people told you about. It's like the bureaucratic runaround is the default behavior in some of these organizations.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    Yes, I've never heard of a private company that has absolutely useless security protocols, let alone one that was broken into as a result of complete incompetence of their security architects and admins. /s
    - throwawaysleep 4y ago
      Plenty of private companies have issues too, but when it comes to devs, the quality is so low that major issues are basically guaranteed.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
        "The problem with corruption, inefficieny and ignorance in government is corruption, inefficiency and ignorance, not government". Let's not put the cart before the horse, shall we? Yes, all human organizations can suffer from these things (and maybe some more than others). But that's not a reason in and of itself to dismiss an entire class of human organizations as irretrievably doomed. Look at what the UK government's digital service has done: absolutely outstanding online presence for so many important government services.
        zdragnar 4y ago
        FWIW, the UK also has abysmal pay for tech salaries compared to the US, so the incentive to avoid the public sector may be lower.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    also in many cases if regulation is written to prohibit such practices, the government exempts itself from that. For example, you can't use SSN to identify someone. Unless of course you were doing it before the prohibition was established. Apparently it's fine if you keep using it, forever.
iLoveOncall 4y ago
> If the government had construction workers & equipment on it's own payroll, these projects probably get done a lot quicker. Ah yes, because that's what government workers are known for, speed, efficiency and quality.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  well take your pick, private builders in britain are known for graft and borderline fraud
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  In my city the tram lines are being maintained and repaired at night. It's not uncommon to see people welding stuff at 3AM. Trams run fast and very rarely break.
bradleyjg 4y ago
I’m not sure it’s so much the have to be contracted out part, Aldi may not have in-house pavers either, as the contracting protocols and methods they are required to use. I think an honest, empowered government worker could find and supervise a modest construction project as well as an honest and empowered Aldi worker. But the government workers are not empowered.
coryrc 4y ago
> because they have to be contracted out to private developers The problem is not the people completing the work; it's not like Aldi's has their own paving machine in the back. It's that the government doesn't have employees who know how to specify the project and nobody has an incentive to finish in a timely manner.
- 93po 4y ago
  > nobody has an incentive to finish in a timely manner. I think the real problem is more that there is accountability for job performance in the private sector (you get fired if you suck and waste your boss's money) and very little to none in the public sector. No one votes for politicians based on objective performance data. It'd wild to me how it's considered American to have this sort of bid process because "free markets" and "small government" but the results are everything Americans accuse socialist countries of being.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- asdff 4y ago
  Its also that you have thousands of miles of road in disrepair, and you have budget to deal with 1% of that so to be pragmatic you triage but people miss that and equate such pragmatism with incompetence.
- bumby 4y ago
  The government has lots of employees who came from the private sector and know exactly how that side of the house works. They aren't really this disjointed set of workers. IMO, a lot of the differences come from the different set of rules that govt work has to run by. For example, Aldi can just decide to hire a contractor that they know does good work at a reasonable price. In contrast, the govt has to use a lengthy fair and open bid process and if they want to select a bid that isn't the lowest, it's a painstaking process to justify that selection. Govt work must adhere to certain laws that tend to push up labor wages (see: Davis Bacon Act). Plus, the govt has lots of other competing goals, like supporting minority or veteran-owned business etc. A simple comparison misses all of those nuances.
Symmetry 4y ago
Countries that have low infrastructure costs, like Spain, do this.

by ahoy 4y ago

nonethewiser 4y ago

> I imagine a lot of the cost & time for public projects is precisely because they have to be contracted out to private developers. But private companies have to contract out to private developers. ALDIs doesn’t have a construction division.

londons_explore 4y ago

Many governmental organisations do have their own employees for this sort of thing. I'm not sure it results in projects being cheaper or quicker overall.

throwawaysleep 4y ago
Probably cheaper, but with abysmal quality. I used to be a public sector dev with an agency that stores plaintext passwords and direct deposit information. People simply didn’t know any better and because government doesn’t have merit raises, the rest of us simply didn’t do anything about it.
- Arainach 4y ago
  That may be true in software (where the pay gap in the private sector is particularly blatant) but it's not true in most industries. The stereotype of lazy government workers is essentially conservative propaganda - I've known and worked with plenty, and with a few obvious exceptions (political appointees, software, etc.) across the board they're passionate and great at what they do. Civil engineers, road builders, park rangers, EPA researchers, administrative assistants, even IT.
  - briandear 4y ago
    Conservative propaganda? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-room https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-roo... And have you ever been to a government office to pull a permit? Or dealt with government procurement? Or attempted to get paperwork through the FAA? And your experience with who you’ve worked with isn’t data by the way.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      Have you ever tried to get google to give you information you need? It's not any easier.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      My girlfriend works public service. The only lazy coworkers she has are Ron Swanson types taking it upon themselves to make public work shittier because they believe the government shouldn't do anything.
    - gamblor956 4y ago
      And have you ever been to a government office to pull a permit? Or dealt with government procurement? Or attempted to get paperwork through the FAA? Yes. It was relatively straightforward, as long as you followed the rules. The hard part is following all the relevant rules, almost all of which exist because people have tried to rip off the government or lawmakers decided to impose unrelated requirements on procurement. That's not the fault of the government workers whose job it is to carry out the requirements that have been imposed on them. And what does an opinion piece about teachers have to do with procurement? Those are completely separate things.
      - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
        >Yes. It was relatively straightforward, as long as you followed the rules. The hard part is not going postal as you find out piece by piece that person A didn't tell you about rule X and that department T actually has a revised form W that... and on and on until you find out that you didn't actually have to do any of that because there's some other less shitty process none of these people told you about. It's like the bureaucratic runaround is the default behavior in some of these organizations.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Yes, I've never heard of a private company that has absolutely useless security protocols, let alone one that was broken into as a result of complete incompetence of their security architects and admins. /s
  - throwawaysleep 4y ago
    Plenty of private companies have issues too, but when it comes to devs, the quality is so low that major issues are basically guaranteed.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
      "The problem with corruption, inefficieny and ignorance in government is corruption, inefficiency and ignorance, not government". Let's not put the cart before the horse, shall we? Yes, all human organizations can suffer from these things (and maybe some more than others). But that's not a reason in and of itself to dismiss an entire class of human organizations as irretrievably doomed. Look at what the UK government's digital service has done: absolutely outstanding online presence for so many important government services.
      - zdragnar 4y ago
        FWIW, the UK also has abysmal pay for tech salaries compared to the US, so the incentive to avoid the public sector may be lower.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  also in many cases if regulation is written to prohibit such practices, the government exempts itself from that. For example, you can't use SSN to identify someone. Unless of course you were doing it before the prohibition was established. Apparently it's fine if you keep using it, forever.

iLoveOncall 4y ago

> If the government had construction workers & equipment on it's own payroll, these projects probably get done a lot quicker. Ah yes, because that's what government workers are known for, speed, efficiency and quality.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
well take your pick, private builders in britain are known for graft and borderline fraud
KptMarchewa 4y ago
In my city the tram lines are being maintained and repaired at night. It's not uncommon to see people welding stuff at 3AM. Trams run fast and very rarely break.

bradleyjg 4y ago

I’m not sure it’s so much the have to be contracted out part, Aldi may not have in-house pavers either, as the contracting protocols and methods they are required to use. I think an honest, empowered government worker could find and supervise a modest construction project as well as an honest and empowered Aldi worker. But the government workers are not empowered.

coryrc 4y ago

> because they have to be contracted out to private developers The problem is not the people completing the work; it's not like Aldi's has their own paving machine in the back. It's that the government doesn't have employees who know how to specify the project and nobody has an incentive to finish in a timely manner.

93po 4y ago
> nobody has an incentive to finish in a timely manner. I think the real problem is more that there is accountability for job performance in the private sector (you get fired if you suck and waste your boss's money) and very little to none in the public sector. No one votes for politicians based on objective performance data. It'd wild to me how it's considered American to have this sort of bid process because "free markets" and "small government" but the results are everything Americans accuse socialist countries of being.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
asdff 4y ago
Its also that you have thousands of miles of road in disrepair, and you have budget to deal with 1% of that so to be pragmatic you triage but people miss that and equate such pragmatism with incompetence.
bumby 4y ago
The government has lots of employees who came from the private sector and know exactly how that side of the house works. They aren't really this disjointed set of workers. IMO, a lot of the differences come from the different set of rules that govt work has to run by. For example, Aldi can just decide to hire a contractor that they know does good work at a reasonable price. In contrast, the govt has to use a lengthy fair and open bid process and if they want to select a bid that isn't the lowest, it's a painstaking process to justify that selection. Govt work must adhere to certain laws that tend to push up labor wages (see: Davis Bacon Act). Plus, the govt has lots of other competing goals, like supporting minority or veteran-owned business etc. A simple comparison misses all of those nuances.

Symmetry 4y ago

Countries that have low infrastructure costs, like Spain, do this.