I think this might well be doable. I'm definitely on board with smooth social security over square-wave social security (what we have now).
> But that's the same thing. Instead of purposely delaying the construction, just finish it on time and then go back and say "look how inexpensive we can build things now, let's build all the things" and get a hundred more construction projects.
I'd say the origination costs angle kills this. There is high pressure to keep the tender process high-bureaucracy from all sides, so you can scale single projects into many dollars but you can't start many projects.
That's the status quo. It sucks, therefore find a way to blow it up. Make it so that it doesn't work. Require the contractor to buy cost overrun insurance from an insurance company which obligates the insurance company to pay someone else to finish the entire job if the original contractor exceeds the budget by a penny, then let it be the insurance company's problem to figure out how to make the company come in on budget or contract the job out to someone else who can.
Once you blow up the bad thing (making construction projects exceed their budgets), the path of least resistance to more construction jobs becomes the good thing (many more construction projects that meet their budgets). But you have to blow up the bad thing first or it remains the status quo.
We know the methods exist because we've used some of them before: https://www.tradelineinc.com/reports/2007-10/unprecedented-t...
What we don't have is a political method to ensure the per-project technical incentives are correct.
* Information Asymmetries: I don't know anything about you or any other org working to combat this so I'm not comfortable spending money on you.
* Coordination Problems: Where do we act, on what scale, etc.
* Value Assignation Problems: How do I benefit from this for the effort I need to put in?
* Risk Problems: What is the chance of success solving a problem of this scale?
Essentially, I'm only seeking to explain. Personally, I have no problem with the system existing as it does. I would prefer other systems out of an inner desire for elegance. But I'm pretty proficient in acting within these to my own benefit so I won't tear it down. Perhaps part of the problem is getting folks like me to care to change this. I'm happy to cheer you on, though. Good luck!
So do the same thing with the good solution. Make it a UBI but call it a negative income tax and tell everybody you're giving them a huge tax cut (which for the majority of people you actually are).
> Another example is most big infrastructure projects in California. You'll notice that most don't finish in time. The real reason is to ensure that there is sustainable construction work going on. They're capable of finishing fast but no one wants that. They just want a large number of people employed. The Trojan Horse is "we're building infrastructure" because otherwise you have to fight the anti-redistribution anti-subsidy people.
But that's the same thing. Instead of purposely delaying the construction, just finish it on time and then go back and say "look how inexpensive we can build things now, let's build all the things" and get a hundred more construction projects.
Blowing the budgets every time is how you get them all canceled by giving very inconvenient real evidence to the people who want to cut them out next time.
> Anti-cronyists don't expend political effort. It's not a thing anyone needs to worry about. Only people who want to get something concrete and people in danger of losing something concrete expend political effort.
All the cronyists and taxpayers are also anti-cronyists for everything but their own projects because everything else is competing for resources with them. A state can't pass a budget with a 500,000,000% deficit and expect anybody to buy the bonds, so every piece of garbage in the budget is crowding out the garbage that somebody else wants. The easier you make it to make the case against your thing, the more likely they are to get their garbage to replace yours.