Ezra Klein On Vetocracy

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ezra-klein-on-vetocracy

In my review last week of Ezra Klein's Why We're Polarized, I linked to a related Vox article on vetocracy:

In a viral essay, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen makes a simple exhortation: It’s time to build. Behind the coronavirus crisis, he writes, lies “our widespread inability to build.” America has been unable to create enough coronavirus tests, or even enough cotton swabs to fully utilize the tests we do have. We don’t have enough ventilators, ICU beds, personal protection equipment. The government hasn’t built the capacity to quickly get money to people or businesses who need it.

And it’s not just the coronavirus. The US could be building our way out of the housing crisis and the climate crisis. We could be building a better education system, more advanced infrastructure. We could have more and better factories, supersonic aircraft, delivery drones, flying cars [...]

I think Andreessen is uncharacteristically underestimating the appetite for building. The absence of creation doesn’t reflect an absence of desire — even in that epicenter of supposed stagnation, Washington, DC.

I’ve covered Congress for almost 20 years. The place is littered with proposals to construct universal pre-K and reimagine the health system, to decarbonize the US economy and incentivize drug development through prizes and solve the housing crisis. They just don’t pass. It’s become a running joke in Washington that every week is “infrastructure week.” But we’re not rebuilding American infrastructure