Ezra Klein

10 years, yeah. And he does that with union labor. But those unions are working 24-7. And what he also does is put down an emergency declaration that wipes out all these other procurement and environmental review and contracting. The 14 steps. It takes away the Al-Anon 14 steps. It's actually a great counter example because here's something.

10 years, yeah. And he does that with union labor. But those unions are working 24-7. And what he also does is put down an emergency declaration that wipes out all these other procurement and environmental review and contracting. The 14 steps. It takes away the Al-Anon 14 steps. It's actually a great counter example because here's something.

So this tanker rolls over, catches on fire, and the bridge falls down. And this is like one of the major arteries of the Northeast Corridor. So it's a huge problem. And the first day Shapiro comes out, Governor Shapiro, and says, look, this is a huge disaster and people are going to need to be patient. This is very likely to take 12 or more months to reconstruct. But they wipe out all the rules.

So this tanker rolls over, catches on fire, and the bridge falls down. And this is like one of the major arteries of the Northeast Corridor. So it's a huge problem. And the first day Shapiro comes out, Governor Shapiro, and says, look, this is a huge disaster and people are going to need to be patient. This is very likely to take 12 or more months to reconstruct. But they wipe out all the rules.

And what the Department of Transportation head does is he goes – and remember what all that stuff we just did with World Broadband. He goes that day and on the bridge nearby working on just normal maintenance projects that had already been in play are two different contractors. And he basically grabs one and says, you're the demolition guys now.

And what the Department of Transportation head does is he goes – and remember what all that stuff we just did with World Broadband. He goes that day and on the bridge nearby working on just normal maintenance projects that had already been in play are two different contractors. And he basically grabs one and says, you're the demolition guys now.

And he grabs another and says, you're the rebuild guys. Oh, leadership. And the contractors are on the job at the end of the first day. And I talked to him. It's in the book. And I say, how long would that normally have taken? He said, under our normal process with the bids and the challenges to the bids and et cetera, it takes 12 to 24 months to do the build and contracting.

And he grabs another and says, you're the rebuild guys. Oh, leadership. And the contractors are on the job at the end of the first day. And I talked to him. It's in the book. And I say, how long would that normally have taken? He said, under our normal process with the bids and the challenges to the bids and et cetera, it takes 12 to 24 months to do the build and contracting.

We have begun, it is such a absolute fucking shame what we've done. We have made bureaucrat into this dirty word, but we've done it by making the job miserable. Because it's adversarial in many respects. It's not just adversarial. We don't give them any latitude. So Elon Musk wants to fire all the bureaucrats, right? Things are all lazy and unproductive.

We have begun, it is such a absolute fucking shame what we've done. We have made bureaucrat into this dirty word, but we've done it by making the job miserable. Because it's adversarial in many respects. It's not just adversarial. We don't give them any latitude. So Elon Musk wants to fire all the bureaucrats, right? Things are all lazy and unproductive.

I wanted before this and I want now to have genuine civil service reform. I want it to be easier to hire, easier to fire, easier to manage. I want them less bound by rules. I want to trust their discretion. No system of government works at some basic level. No system of anything. If you have so little trust in it that you won't allow people to make decisions. It just doesn't.

I wanted before this and I want now to have genuine civil service reform. I want it to be easier to hire, easier to fire, easier to manage. I want them less bound by rules. I want to trust their discretion. No system of government works at some basic level. No system of anything. If you have so little trust in it that you won't allow people to make decisions. It just doesn't.

This is a big part of Jen Palka's book. I have, again, a really pretty interesting interview that's in the book. This part's about LA public housing. So in LA, they pass this bond measure, more than a billion dollars to build public housing. And whatever it was, six years later when I'm writing, they built like I don't know, a couple thousand units. And many of them were like $700,000 per unit.

This is a big part of Jen Palka's book. I have, again, a really pretty interesting interview that's in the book. This part's about LA public housing. So in LA, they pass this bond measure, more than a billion dollars to build public housing. And whatever it was, six years later when I'm writing, they built like I don't know, a couple thousand units. And many of them were like $700,000 per unit.

And I was like, why? I ended up talking to a woman named Heidi Marston, who'd been running the homelessness services in LA. And she had quit and written this letter about why she was quitting. And she said something I think about a lot. She was like, I had a billion dollars. And if you had just allowed me to spend it, I could have really done something with it. It's fucking heartbreaking.

And I was like, why? I ended up talking to a woman named Heidi Marston, who'd been running the homelessness services in LA. And she had quit and written this letter about why she was quitting. And she said something I think about a lot. She was like, I had a billion dollars. And if you had just allowed me to spend it, I could have really done something with it. It's fucking heartbreaking.

I'll just give an example from this project. We passed this bond measure. What we do in the bond measure is we put in rule, regulation, whatever, but you're basically supposed to use the public taxpayer money to seed the project, not to build it, to seed it. Then you're supposed to cobble together five more sources of funding to build it. And the idea was that this is gonna save taxpayer money.

I'll just give an example from this project. We passed this bond measure. What we do in the bond measure is we put in rule, regulation, whatever, but you're basically supposed to use the public taxpayer money to seed the project, not to build it, to seed it. Then you're supposed to cobble together five more sources of funding to build it. And the idea was that this is gonna save taxpayer money.

We're gonna leverage taxpayer money, right? A great word from finance. What it ends up doing is making it really, really, really difficult to finance a project. And you're getting, I mean, it's affordable housing, right? So it's not like Blackstone is giving you the money.

We're gonna leverage taxpayer money, right? A great word from finance. What it ends up doing is making it really, really, really difficult to finance a project. And you're getting, I mean, it's affordable housing, right? So it's not like Blackstone is giving you the money.