Midweek Takes #4

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The Road to Heaven is Lined with Good Transit.

Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President, was known as a “Do-Nothing President.” Lucky for us he didn’t have to convince Congress to rebuild the tunnels under the Hudson. Image source.

You know the aphorism, “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions?” It means, in so many words: “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.” This is a perfect embodiment of American politics in the twenty-first century. Alan Altshuler and David Luberoff wrote as far back as 2003 that big, messy, expensive projects rub up against an unwritten Doctrine of Do No Harm. And so an unforgiving, spasmodic, capricious electorate decides over, and over, and over again to reward small-c conservative infrastructure inertia for not being too disruptive or too costly, even if the future electorate, which is still the old electorate, will b…