This is the Twenty One Card Trick of arguments - it isn't very entertaining and it doesn't really fool anyone.

Sorry, sorry, that's a huge exaggeration, but I just wanted to use that joke on a fellow magician.

Porkbarreling is corruption. It involves bribing voters with taxpayer money. Typically the thing that is created has no actual value at all. Either it's military stuff - equivalent to building things to setting them on fire - or it's literally worthless, like the Bridge to Nowhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge, which cost taxpayers $400 million.

We fled Brooklyn in December 2016, and now we live in the Netherlands - a country that is capable of great civic works.

For example, we live very close to this marvellous new bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nescio_Bridge

Total cost - less than $15 million.

Their new plan is to raise the bed of the great river IJ that flows through the city by four meters, so that they can run a bike path under the river.

Wishing you were back in the days of somewhat less corruption isn't going to work. Everything must be torn down and rebuilt.