The Big Dig, Boston's (largely) federally-financed tunnels underneath the city's famous harbor, was a scam conducted by powerful Massachusetts politicians who fleeced the taxpayers of other states to pay for a purely local concern. Now the Bay State's politicians are shocked, shocked that contractors fleeced them. Swindles beget swindles. The scam cost taxpayers $14.6 billion dollars (so far). The scam cost one woman her life. The lesson? When other people pay the tab, not only will the recipient countenance wasteful items on the bill, but will neglect what's given. People who pay for their own stuff are on guard against rip-offs and generally take good care of their purchase.

Tip O’Neill started this boondoggle and brought home the bacon to see it though initially. At the time, The Big Pig was slated as a $2.9B dollar project. Now, even at over $14B, the price tag keeps rising as our federal and local pols have proven time and time again that they can not be trusted with our money or with overseeing the quality control of such a large and costly venture. They simply don’t give a $hite as long as they get theirs and for group who are entrusted to preserve the public safety, they have failed miserably. It’s f’ing criminal on a number of levels.

Now they’re talking, just to investigate this mess, another $50M. Meanwhile, they say they have no pictures of the murder scene as the Pike’s super duper $170M camera surveillance system was not turned on. What a fiasco. If most people ran their lives the way the government runs things (especially in the Republic of Mass.); they’d be hard pressed to maintain their existence.

The Big Dig is obviously proof positive that government will always be efficient and responsible when spending other people's money.

Your last two sentences summarize sound and elementary principles from Econ 101, a subject the ignorance of which seems to be common (requisite?) among liberals.

the coverage has been non-stop, wall to wall in the papers, tv, and on talk radio. the nationally syndicated radio shows have been pre-emtped all last week for extended local coverage, replete with titles for the scandal and scary theme music. It is scary, and with the tunnel being closed for the next few months, it'll be awful driving in the city. Boston does have the best Subway system in the world, so take the T.

I keep hearing that we have the best subway system in the world, but since I ride it day to day I find it really hard to believe. Is public transportation really so poor everywhere else?

Despite all the incidents like this, the elites in government still think we should gladly turn over our hard money so they can "solve" our problems. These are the same people who refuse to believe all their half-witted schemes could ever have negative consequences.
The elites live in a world where intentions are more important than results, talk more important than action.
They are the same people who were hysterical when the late,great Ronald Reagan proclaimed government as being the problem not the solution.

OJ, I've been able to ride the system in New York, Chicago, Washington, and London, and nothing beats the original. The T is the most expansive and accessible in the country/world and one of the most affordable.

It took big gonads for Romney to wrestle responsibility and control of this mess away from a connected career hack and take on the task of managing the repairs of the tunnels.

He demonstrates daily the stud that he is when he gets up in front of the media and gets very technical to explain what's going on and what will be done specifically to fix the problems.

If Mitt shows this kind of confidence and generates this kind of take control comfort level in his run for the Pres., he should do alright.

Didn't take gonads at all to take away investigatory oversight now. It would have taken gonads for Mitt to not give up on his earlier attempts to get rid of Amorello and gain oversight when he tried. Instead, he backed down and let Amorello stay.

More than gonads, Mitt simply pounced on a current tragedy and took the political advantage and took aim at an ebattled hack. (right political move now I suppose)

I agree with Mitt when he suggested that, like after Katrina, the public lost confidence in Michael Brown at FEMA and heads rolled, thus equating Brown with Amorello at the Turnpike/Big Dig. Mitt's point is that the Big Dig's hack-AMorello must go just like FEMA's hack must go. But it's more like the President lost confidence in Brown (Amorello), and the public lost confidence in Bush (Mitt).

So, it remains to be seen if Mitt gains or has shown any presidential-like gravitas out of this latest chapter in the Big Dig fiasco, because he had little up 'til now within Massachusetts-- before or after announcing his decision to not run for re-election. But therein lies the problem in that he couldn't run for re-election because he ran for Governor'02 as a liberal Republican in a one-party state with a vague sense of cultural-moderation associated with his Mormon religion (while taking few moderate-conservative stances), and began running for President'08 (read: Vice-President) as a born-again Conservative. It'll only go so far.

With this Turnpike/Big Dig scenario, what would take gonads would have been to take decisive action and show bold action and take Amorello out sooner (when he deserved to be). What would have displayed presidential-like gravitas would have been to have principles and stay and run on them for re-election for Governor.

Mitt hasn't done either.

What he has done is make good on the post Big Dig tragedy politics. Good for him.

Post-Big Dig tragedy, Mitt has only shown that he puts on daily press conferences, makes good use of charts, graphs, and power-point presentations.

When it comes to the Big Dig, noone takes any Massachusetts politician seriously, and Mitt's not going to change that.

Mitt does have great hair though.

Oh, I see. You admit that Mitt tried to get Amorello out, but you then qualify that by saying he didn’t try hard enough when, in fact, Romney has been nothing but diligent in trying to remove the useless career hack. Until this disaster occurred, Romney had no legal or political power to get rid of him but he certainly tried.

“Authority” type entities in Massachusetts are autonomous and, although politically motivated, have little real interference by those in government.

Romney is a lame duck Governor and considering that he is making a Presidential run, this could have been something that he might have stayed away from. But, true to Romney’s maturity and sense of responsibility, he’s diving in and taking the hands on approach and demonstrating a management style that should have been expected with regards to this project all along.

Yes, he has some more "political" authority in that heads have to roll vis a vis his own Katrina an*logy. But he has the same legal authority now that he's had all along.