I work in the passenger rail industry, and I’d be happy to explain why we don’t have high speed or mid speed rail. It all comes down to us not having any rail departments THAT ARE TASKED and EMPOWERED to BUILD ANYTHING related to rail. Everything goes to the consultant industrial complex where the money is lit on fire.

Guys, I lived in South Korea for 15 years and Japan for 5; the speed at which these people build is incredible.

Great conversation, Jon! I watch you and Ezra every time I can. Thank y'all for fighting for us.

I work in local government as an engineer. I moved here from another country 4 years ago. Every single year, without fail, one of the annual review goals I’m given is “get more realistic with your timelines” because I’m always way too “optimistic”. A few weeks ago I finally knuckled under and agreed to extend my timelines significantly to make them more “realistic”. This conversation is inspiring me to go back and change that. Because if I’m not pushing constantly to shorten these project timelines, then who is?

"The measure of government is the people it helps, not the processes it follows" beautiful line

As someone who is a civil servant, I completely agree with Ezra about trusting us to get shit done because believe me, we are so inefficient because of all the things he talks about. For example, we spent a bunch of money and like 5 years to replace one of our old computer systems. It was live for a year before it was already too old and is now being replaced with another 5 year project. Because we have to take all this time to fairly decide on a contractor, etc etc etc

Such a good conversation. As someone who used to write proposals, another insane part of the process is a NOFO will use 100 pages of text explaining what they want in the proposal. But our end has to fit into 20 pages, with a specific font and spacing. It will be thrown out otherwise. The last few days of writing are all about cutting content to cram it into the 20 pages without losing content. Then a reviewer rejects the proposal because there wasn't enough detail.

Having spent a fair bit of my life in the cycle of grants, research, and publications, listening to John and Ezra talk about it makes me smile. Yes, this is how it works.. every day.. day after day.. year after year..without end.

I don’t expect this comment to get a lot of attention but to John Stuart and ezara Klein, thank you for this breakdown. It’s easy to vilanize and polarize anyone in the system but to have this breakdown is absolutely necessary. I wish this kind of reflection was more popular.

Jon "I'm totally not a journalist" Stewart once again doing some damn fine work to help educate and serve the public good

"It's like someone designed a machine to make sure no one ever received broadband". Gold.

This podcast perfectly captures the true causes of government bloat and waste. Feel like I need to send it to everyone I know.

Rural broadband is the one policy I was excited about from Biden. I live about an hour outside of DC, so it's not even that deep in the middle of the country. Now I see why nothings happened.

Guys, thank you both for all you do. Now if only people will listen.

One of the best episodes.

Currently listening to this while doing my job which is scouting power poles for the design work of putting up broadband cables in rural North Carolina.

im just a bill just only a bill and im sitting on the steps at capital hill LOL

Guys, I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your brains and the way you think and articulate your thoughts and the fun take on these extremely serious issues! Well done!!!! You give me hope that one day we might get better! "We're caught between a (republican) party that wants to make the government fail, and a (democrat) party that doesn't make government work!" - Ezra Klein

Probably the best interview from Stewart I have ever seen. I'm 32, started watching The Daily Show in High School. Having him back is incredible. And this just blew me away.

Ezra brings up good points and at the end of the day, Americans just want a government that works. That so many people 'want to tear the whole thing down' speaks to government not working for the people. If politicians can't communicate and demonstrate how they're making the lives of their constituents better, they should not be in politics.