July 27, 2006

Blogpost of the Day: Jay Tea at Wizbang on the Big Dig, and Why We Should Care

Filed under: Economy, Quotes, Etc. of the Day, Taxes & Government — TBlumer @ 9:43 am

Jay Tea is staying on this story, which considering its scope, has not gotten a lot of attention outside of New England since the tunnel death:

Every day, as it becomes more and more obvious that Boston’s Big Dig project is not as bad as its critics had been claiming since it started.

It’s far, far, far worse.

….. If you’re wondering why I’m wasting your time on this local story, it’s because that this $14.6-BILLION-dollar project was mostly funded with federal dollars — until Congress finally turned off the spigot about a year ago. I don’t have precise figures, but the corrupt swine of Massachusetts flushed about $11 billion of OUR money (Correct figure appears to be $7 billion; see UPDATE below — Ed.) down their killer hole in the ground — largely thanks to officials with names like “Kennedy” and “Kerry.”

Go there for more ugly details.

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UPDATE: Kevin in the first comment below points to source material (LARGE PDF) indicating that the US Government has spent $7 billion so far. Despite an apparent federal commitment ceiling of $8.5 billion, it looks like $7 billion is what the feds will spend on the Dig. I appreciate getting the info.

UPDATE 2: Jay Tea comments on Mass Pike Chairman Matt Amarello’s resignation.

2 Comments

  1. Tom,

    Being a CPA, you are far more qualified to analyze this financial statement than I. From what I can tell, only 48% of the CA/T project came from Federal funding and the rest of the money is coming from the state and debt.

    http://www.masspike.com/pdf/finances/fin_04_05.pdf

    Am I off base here?

    Comment by Kevin irwin — July 27, 2006 @ 12:19 pm

  2. #1, Thanks for finding that, Kevin. I didn’t look because I was xrefing to another blog.

    There are two figures at the PDF:
    - Page 14 of report (p. 17 of file) shows the pie chart with 48% Fed Funding. Elsewhere it is shown that the 48% amounts to $7.049 billion
    - But Page 1 of report (p. 4 of file) says that the Federal Funding ceiling for the project is $8.549 billion.

    I don’t see any indication that the feds are actually going to spend any more or reimburse other parties involved, so it looks like the $7 bil and 48% stand until shown otherwise.

    I revised the post to reflect that. Thanks again.

    Comment by TBlumer — July 27, 2006 @ 12:59 pm

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