“Infrastructure” is a perennial topic that enters and leaves California’s public consciousness in the following manner: A politician says “we must rebuild our crumbling infrastructure,” journalists report it, almost nothing is done, and the infrastructure continues to crumble. The talking point is made. Check the box. Repeat. Decades pass. If you’ve driven west on Interstate...

“Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” –  John Cleese, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979 Any discussion of California’s neglected infrastructure has to recognize the three factors most responsible, libertarians, environmentalists, and...