> There's little faith that public projects have the expertise to actually get it done and make it work.
This ends up being self-fulfilling. People don't trust the government, so they suffocate the project in fixed payscales and low-bid rules and endless reviews, and so the government can't get anything done, and so people don't trust the government...
> At the end of the day you need some people who actually know how to do the job rather than just argue over plans and subcontract twelve levels deep.
Right - so you need to be able to hire those people and pay them something close to what they're worth, or build up that expertise over the long term by having a steady pipeline of projects and training people as you go. But voters don't trust these governments enough to empower them to do that.
This ends up being self-fulfilling. People don't trust the government, so they suffocate the project in fixed payscales and low-bid rules and endless reviews, and so the government can't get anything done, and so people don't trust the government...
> At the end of the day you need some people who actually know how to do the job rather than just argue over plans and subcontract twelve levels deep.
Right - so you need to be able to hire those people and pay them something close to what they're worth, or build up that expertise over the long term by having a steady pipeline of projects and training people as you go. But voters don't trust these governments enough to empower them to do that.