Many here don’t love government and I totally get the sentiment.

But through first hand experience, the real evil IMO is consultants who take advantage of, and manipulate, well-meaning officials who have no business or street smarts. They are masters of deception and fraud who position themselves to be “needed” whenever public funding becomes available for a project.

Then they work to siphon those funds towards themselves while not providing any actual value in a truly sickening fashion with no regard for the taxpayer. Projects go over budget and way past schedule, designs are totally out of touch and get reworked over and over again while unnecessary services are billed month after month by the consultants. They steer the ship in circles from the shadows.

The officials hands are tied by a system hardened thru too many rules and are pressured to show *something* is being done. They’re not innocent either in many cases- but most people here don’t realize it’s actually very hard for them to commit conscious fraud. So a lot of it is a slow innocent drip as the consultants corner them like a boring but dominant chess player. They do this without committing anything that looks like a “gotcha” type crime. It’s systematic- like you’d need to RICO case every play to truly prove anything in court. It’s not even one coordinated group, it’s a whole damn industry of waste and fraud… like a decentralized ongoing racket.

DOGE isn’t perfect but it’s a step in the right direction… too bad it’s not being done at state and local level too (at least in CA). I can tell you- they need it too.