Last year the Boston subway system, what we call the T, opened a brand new station on its green line.

And it was a big deal. I have a friend who works in state government, and that week he showed me a picture of the ribbon cutting.

In it, we counted at least 10 pairs of scissors. ribbon cutting the

the green ribbon at once.

We are here getting to board the new green line.

There was the governor, of course, right in the middle, plus the lieutenant governor, both

are senators, two congresspeople, and a whole bunch of federal and state officials.

The photo was so crowded that the mayor of Boston is barely visible

in the second row.

Part of the reason that all these elected officials showed up is that this rail project

has been in the works for over 30 years. It was almost cancelled several times. It cost more than $2 billion. And now, finally, we all have something to show for it.

So yeah, everyone wanted in on the photo op. My friend and I laughed looking

at the image. All these politicians squeezed in shoulder to shoulder for one measly train station.

What a joke, I said.

That response, we can call it the what a joke response is sadly I think the way a lot of Americans talk about big government projects

Whether it's transportation, housing, energy, infrastructure, you name it, there's a feeling, I sense at least, that this country is simply not capable of doing big things.

Further delay to the California Bullet Train project

that once we sent people to the moon,

but now we can't even keep our bridges standing

or our trains running.

Building the new Second Avenue subway has been anything but easy.

Not to mention, build everything we'll need to survive climate change,

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