The reason we can't have whatever nice things you want is because California doesn't want to spend the money on that nice thing, and it has to maintain a budget, unlike nations. Including a $40 Billion project on a budget makes many, many other things go away. Even if it's just temporarily to help pay for the construction of the service, the point stands.
So imagine if France couldn't go into debt - only the EU can. France wants a giga-train suddenly, so they ask for it. The current leader of the EU isn't a fan of more trains, so he turns it down. France goes back to its people and says "we can build the giga-train if we do XYZ", and people vote based on whether or not they want XYZ or the giga-train more.
I think it's possible you just might want things different from what others want. That study a while back which showed most Americans want cheap public transit so that everyone else gets off the road and gives them more space lives rent free in my head. Nobody wants these stupid trains.
I mean, yeah, the US having systemic problems which make capital investment difficult, or at least extremely slow, is _part_ of it, but there's also just a tendency to a complacent "we have these problems because we are _special_ and they can't be fixed" attitude amongst many Americans (I say this as an outside observer).
So imagine if France couldn't go into debt - only the EU can. France wants a giga-train suddenly, so they ask for it. The current leader of the EU isn't a fan of more trains, so he turns it down. France goes back to its people and says "we can build the giga-train if we do XYZ", and people vote based on whether or not they want XYZ or the giga-train more.
I think it's possible you just might want things different from what others want. That study a while back which showed most Americans want cheap public transit so that everyone else gets off the road and gives them more space lives rent free in my head. Nobody wants these stupid trains.