Note the assertion that I was responding to, which is the idea that government is ineffective because Republicans sabotage it. To refute that assertion, I pointed out that government services in heavily blue cities in heavily blue states are still bad. That doesn’t mean that Democrats cause those problems, only that those problems exist even where there are few republicans to “sabotage” government.
There are urban areas controlled by Republicans, and they don’t do public services any better—they just don’t do public services. E.g. Phoenix.
I just looked up information on Phoenix, and it seems that it more or less corresponds to the 7th and 9th congressional districts, which seem to have had Democratic congresspeople since they were created, and also voted for Democratic presidential candidates in every election.
What does being “pro business” or “against regulation” have to do with the quality of public services? These cities and states spend a ton of money on public services—they just do a bad job running them.
Besides, Western European countries manage to have good public services even though they:
1) Are more “pro business” in key respects, especially from the point of view of taxation. Western European countries generally have lower reliance on corporate taxation than the US, and much higher reliance on consumption taxes (VAT). They also rely much more heavily on payroll taxes paid for by middle class individuals than on corporate taxes.
2) Are more deregulatory in key respects. There is an E.U.-wide directive that requires rail to be deregulated and opened up to competition. If we had something similar here, instead of having government departments operate commuter rail service in say Virginia, the state would have to separate ownership of the tracks and allow for-profit companies to bid to actually operate the service. In DC, the WMATA Union is fighting tooth and nail to prevent one part of one line from being operated under contract to a private company. By contrast, the entire Stockholm subway is operated by private companies (one being MRT, the Hong Kong rail operator).
> Scholar Charles Glenn noted that “governments in most Western democracies provide partial or full funding for nongovernment schools chosen by parents; the United States (apart from a few scattered and small-scale programs) is the great exception, along with Greece.”2 Or as Diane Ravitch pointed out in a 2001 article, “The proportion of students in government-funded private schools is sizable in countries such as Australia (25 percent), Belgium (58 percent), Denmark (11 percent), France (16.8 percent), South Korea (21 percent), the Netherlands (76 percent), Spain (24 percent), and the United Kingdom (30 percent).”
“Businesses” are a total red herring. Those nice public services in Europe aren’t paid for by “businesses” they’re paid for by taxes on the middle class. The middle class agrees to pay those extra taxes, because the government has proven it can run the public services effectively. Democrats would love to raise taxes and expand public services. (See, e.g., the Democratic primary.) They just can’t convince voters that voters would get their money’s worth.
Likewise, the idea that public services in US cities is bad because Democrats aren’t far left enough is totally absurd when in Germany you can ride around on a partially-privatized passenger rail system and send your kid to a private school 85% subsidized by the government.
"There is an E.U.-wide directive that requires rail to be deregulated and opened up to competition. If we had something similar here, instead of having government departments operate commuter rail service in say Virginia"
My impression is that in the US, the existing system basically gives priority to freight, and that passenger rail is poor because of that.
I have been on an Amtrak train that had to wait and wait for a (private) freight train, and of course people blame Amtrak and the government for the delay which is a little unfair.
But in the big picture, I think it's not intuitively obvious that prioritizing freight in the US is the wrong decision for the country. I mean, you could argue it, but maybe freight is the best use of rail given the overall lack of density of the country.
There are urban areas controlled by Republicans, and they don’t do public services any better—they just don’t do public services. E.g. Phoenix.