Standing invisibly beside the dumb and dumberer politicians are the superpower lobbies and vested interests. Well before the time comes for "..,honestly debating the pros and cons of any issue..." all the important decisions have already been made behind closed doors and set in concrete.

Think of the BART "rapid transit" scheme already in the pipeline of manifest destiny before killing off the Key System on the Bay Bridge. Do you imagine anyone at the time with the stones to propose the obvious alternative(what would have been done in Europe)of taking the SP lines on both sides of the Bay and connecting them with a bridge or tube and building an S-bahn or RER? The SP and Bechtel were too powerful to contrary. And we have entities now, different ones, but so powerful as to be similarly untouchable, sacrosanct.