California (Bad) Dreamin’
January 11, 2025
Amid the horrific fires in Los Angeles that have destroyed hundreds of homes and caused numerous deaths and injuries we have reports of massive infrastructure and fire equipment failures that have certainly made the situation much worse and have probably cost lives.
The fire hydrants are mostly out of water. “There’s no water in the fire hydrants,” declared LA real estate developer Rick Caruso. City Councilwoman Traci Park said there has been “chronic underinvestment in .. . our public infrastructure,” presumably meaning water delivery to fire hydrants. Fire chiefs are complaining about huge shortages of basic firefighting equipment, including firefighters’ helmets and gear.
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There may be little or no water in the fire hydrants but the
local governments felt free to virtue signal by sending “surplus”
firefighting equipment, including fire trucks, to Ukraine in 2022. The
Mayor of Los Angeles cut $17 million from this year’s budget although
she wanted to cut $23 million. The city government is spending $13
billion on housing for homeless people. That’s billion with a “B.”
There is also apparently of money for a taxpayer funded “Transgender
Café,” Gay Men’s Chorus, and an International Gay and Lesbian Archives.
The county fire chief’s strategic plan proudly declared that one of its
“key goals” was DEI.
These are problems that face all governments, not just Los Angeles city and county. The essence of the problem was once clearly stated by former New York Mayor Ed Koch when he said that “It’s hard to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new sewer line.” That is, politicians will allocate taxpayers’ dollars where they think it will deliver them the most votes and campaign contributions, which is not necessarily in the best interest of a majority of the public. In contrast, private-sector entrepreneurs in a competitive market will invest and spend in a way that best serves their customers because that’s how they can maximize their profits so that they, their employees, and their communities can prosper.
There’s also the political short-sightedness effect of public choice theory. Every politician, with one or two exceptions, is always focused on the next election in order to keep his job and enhancing his prospects of “moving up” to a bigger job. The incentive is to spend money that will please constituent groups now, because the next election is always not very far away.
Raising taxes, on the other hand, loses votes unless the money raised can be rather immediately spent on various interest groups that can be relied on for their support at election time. Raising taxes now for benefits in ten, twenty, or thirty years in the future, when the politician proposing the tax increase will have moved on, retired, or passed away is a losing proposition politically. Hence the “chronic underinvestment” in government infrastructure such as water and sewer lines as alluded to by the LA city councilwoman. Being the cause of the chronic underinvestment, politicians then typically grandstand by bemoaning the “crumbling infrastructure” in their cities, states, and nationally, hoping that a bridge or two financed by taxpayer dollars can be named after them.
Interestingly, when some cities like Jersey City, New Jersey, put their water works up for periodic competitive bidding and private water companies take over there is a world of difference in terms of efficiency. Free market competition always trumps urban socialism. Developer Rick Caruso saved his own Los Angeles mall by having his employees working as firefighters with the assistance of a private fire fighting corporation that was not plagued by equipment shortages.
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The inherent problems – and disasters like the Los Angeles fires –
of political control of “infrastructure” are especially obvious when it
comes to technological infrastructure. Incredibly, it was not until
2019 that the U.S. government quit using 1970s-era eight-inch floppy
discs to operate its nuclear weapons arsenals! Congressional hearings
in 2016 revealed that the computer system used to track Department of
Veterans affairs benefits was fifty years old and used COBOL, the
computer industry equivalent of “Old English.” State and local
government technology is often just as dysfunctional and outdated if not
more so. After all, it’s only used to benefit the average taxpayer.
Then there’s good old fashioned political corruption. In his book Depression, War, and Cold War Robert Higgs cited many examples of grossly outdated military technology, including fighter jets. The reason is always that the corporation that has been producing the outdated technology to the government for years is a top campaign contributor to both political parties. When it comes to choosing between campaign cash and providing American soldiers with the best military technology, the campaign cash alternative is always chosen until the technology becomes so hopelessly outdated that politicians fear a public outcry over it.
As the late P.J. O’Rourke might have said, putting fire prevention and control in the hands of politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
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