Thursday, October 30, 2025

US State Capacity

The U.S. Government’s Repair Bills Are Coming Due
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/10/29/trump-outsourcing-austerity-shutdown-united-states-government/
Decades of accumulated technical debt have hollowed out state capacity. 

The Trouble with Abundance
In a book released earlier this year, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue essentially for “competent capacity”: a US that can effectively plan, approve, and execute projects. That is a worthy goal, but “abundance” is probably not the clearest way to convey it, let alone the most effective means of achieving it.