Rich Lowry

The Beetle and the Pipeline

When progressives talk of government, it is in an alluring can-do spirit. Making the case for more spending, President Barack Obama invokes the 19th century as a heroic age that built government-supported railroads. MSNBC hosts pose in front of monumental 20th-century public-works projects and speak of what all of us can do together.

This is all well and good as nostalgia, but is utterly detached from the spirit and the practices of 21st-century government. We don’t excel at building things. We excel at studying things, and putting up obstacles to building them. It...