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Eh, you’ll likely have a different #1, but IMO the greatest financial destroyer of our nation over the years is the astonishing red tape and overly-complex regulation the Feds slap on any project or enterprise they can lay their eyes on.

One such example I’ve mentioned on FR in previous years still remains “undone”.

Essentially, a small spillway on a local pond (maybe 5 acres when healthy) in a local, rather well developed Federal Wildlife Refuge (many facilities from years past, and a few newer ones) washed out some years back, and continues to erode away. The repair job would cost the State DNR ~$10,000, says one of the State DNR guys. So, it’d probably cost some farmer with a tractor or backhoe $5k including his labor, but, I digress. That’s a “peanuts” inflation.

No repair has been done and the pond continues to deteriorate. Soon all that will be left is a small marsh. Keep in mind that aside from the recreation and conservation aspect — fishing, waterfowl usage, etc. — this pond and several others were put in to help reduce siltation of the large lake downstream, and mitigate risk to the main lake’s dam. The pond is right beside a good road, with easy equipment access, and can be dredged easily to remove silt as needed. But, because the outflow is on Federal Land, to do this $10,000 job, hundreds of thousands of dollars of studies and reviews are needed to create a huge stack of paperwork to ok not anything new, just a simple restoration, maybe built or anchored a little stronger, of what was there for many years and that did exactly what the State DNR and the Refuge officials and biologists were completely happy with.

So, the Refuge doesn’t want to spend the money, this nice spot deteriorates, there’s greater fishing pressure on the other waterbodies on the Refuge, more silt goes to the main lake, and floodwaters are not mitigated. IF the repairs ever happen, they’ll cost us taxpayers 25 times what they should, if not more.

Bah!