High speed rail cost overruns are almost always due to how expensive eminent domain is more than anything. The estimations given to state officials are often an order of magnitude off how much land they would need to buy. Its also the kind of project beyond the scope of anyone but the largest companies to even attempt, so even if an investment firm could do the math to recognize the economic benefit of having high speed rail and thus they could capitalize on investing in it through other investments in other industries that would grow substantially in the presence of better transit they can't raise the capital to do it and the time frame to realize those returns is too long for any investor to consider reasonable. So we don't get public or private trains.
> the bloated military budget
Its not a money mismanagement at all though. The money allocated to the military that is squandered on hundred thousand dollar toilets and billions on fighter jets that don't even work and will never see practical application in aerial combat were all budgeted intentionally to make private defense contractors rich. Those contractors paid the bribe money to see the budget allocated to them and get a tremendous return on investment.
Something like comparing NASA and SpaceX can be reasonable, but you have to be nuanced about it. A large part of the SLS overrun, for example, was due to their contract with Boeing which was budgeted for 4B but overran time and money up to 9B. Thats "private enterprise" at work wasting tax money because they knew the oversight wasn't there to hold them accountable, as is the case with many government projects mired in corruption.
But you know what? If your government is corrupt, the solution is not to give private enterprise - those that corrupted said government - control over the functions government was supposed to fulfill. You fix your government. If NASA is unable to budget or deliver projects on time, you fire those given the responsibility of managing said projects, do independent investigations of why they failed, and if some party is culpable for the intentional sabotage or deception of the proposals arrest them. If theres a revolving door in Washington of defense contractors lining the pockets of congressmen for taxpayer money via the defense budget investigate and impeach the corrupt politicians. When you contract with a third party to budget infrastructure expansion make them culpable for failure to deliver or for budget overruns.
High speed rail cost overruns are almost always due to how expensive eminent domain is more than anything. The estimations given to state officials are often an order of magnitude off how much land they would need to buy. Its also the kind of project beyond the scope of anyone but the largest companies to even attempt, so even if an investment firm could do the math to recognize the economic benefit of having high speed rail and thus they could capitalize on investing in it through other investments in other industries that would grow substantially in the presence of better transit they can't raise the capital to do it and the time frame to realize those returns is too long for any investor to consider reasonable. So we don't get public or private trains.
> the bloated military budget
Its not a money mismanagement at all though. The money allocated to the military that is squandered on hundred thousand dollar toilets and billions on fighter jets that don't even work and will never see practical application in aerial combat were all budgeted intentionally to make private defense contractors rich. Those contractors paid the bribe money to see the budget allocated to them and get a tremendous return on investment.
Something like comparing NASA and SpaceX can be reasonable, but you have to be nuanced about it. A large part of the SLS overrun, for example, was due to their contract with Boeing which was budgeted for 4B but overran time and money up to 9B. Thats "private enterprise" at work wasting tax money because they knew the oversight wasn't there to hold them accountable, as is the case with many government projects mired in corruption.
But you know what? If your government is corrupt, the solution is not to give private enterprise - those that corrupted said government - control over the functions government was supposed to fulfill. You fix your government. If NASA is unable to budget or deliver projects on time, you fire those given the responsibility of managing said projects, do independent investigations of why they failed, and if some party is culpable for the intentional sabotage or deception of the proposals arrest them. If theres a revolving door in Washington of defense contractors lining the pockets of congressmen for taxpayer money via the defense budget investigate and impeach the corrupt politicians. When you contract with a third party to budget infrastructure expansion make them culpable for failure to deliver or for budget overruns.