Comment by allworknoplay

We also used to have stronger public institutions that could maintain long-term vision, weren’t subject to constant political upheaval or budget cuts, could reliably staff planning and execution phases, didn’t have to put everything out to bid, negotiate with overdue/overbudget vendors, set up new processes for each project, etc.

Bureaucracy involves some waste in overstaffing, but also saves on the chaos that results from our starved, politicized institutions with little internal execution/planning capability.