When you have a welfare state, politicians spend public funds buying votes instead of maintaining roads, dams, bridges and other infrastructure so over time things deteriorate and fall apart.
This is happening big time in California as 35 years of deferred maintenance results in wide spread decay
Lots of areas in LA and the Bay Area that were once show pieces are now looking third world. The people don't seem to care because they are often third world illegal aliens anyway.
Sounds about right. You forgot the global warming morons managing our forests, rivers and streams.
So true. Here in DC we have a major metrorail refit underway. Maintenance had been deferred for decades. Every time the budget came up, most available dollars went to increase pay and benefits. Every time the union contracts came up, management rolled over for raises. Maintenance was deferred. The managers warned about it, the consultants warned about it, system reliability headed south, capacity expansion was delayed, etc. But the unions kept robbing the future. It took a big scary fire (not good when you have hundreds of people trapped in a tunnel) to change the political calculus. So now we're paying a premium to make up for years of neglect. I'm sure most folks here could provide their own local stories. This is how the public sector manages.