How Do They Get Away With It?

What is it?

Clue - The planning began in the 1960s, construction in 1991, and it is scheduled to be mostly finished in 2006.

Here’s another clue if you haven’t got it yet – a local writer called it the “big lie.”

Others have called it the ‘black hole” and it’s also been labeled as the U.S. Government’s Enron and even the Big Deception. This has been labeled as the biggest government boondoggle in the history of man concerning cost. For years now, key Massachusetts officials and a world-famous engineering-construction firm are alleged to have labored industriously to hide from the American people the true cost of building a gargantuan highway-construction project through the heart of the city.

The eventual cost of the Big Dig is likely to be 500 percent higher than the $2.56 billion estimate that received federal approval in 1985. Its projected price tag now is at least $14.6 billion.

In 2002, Christy Mihos, a fiscally conservative member of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA), and A. Joseph DeNucci, the longtime elected auditor of Massachusetts, agree that billions have been wasted on the project. A report of the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee called the Big Dig one of the worst cases of government mismanagement in recent history. "Bechtel, the project management and others have not made cost containment and prudent financing a top priority" DeNucci says.

Another name that the project earned was that of the “Big Stand Around.” During this period I would often take a commuter rail train from South Station to Needham and as we left South Station we would go right over part of the construction project. I cannot remember ever seeing more that 25% of the men at the site working.

On Sept. 6, a date arbitrarily chosen, a reporter from INSIGHT magazine watched a Big Dig work site with watch in hand, arriving during the lunch break at 12:15 p.m. From the moment the break ended at 12:30, INSIGHT'S reporter saw 23 men idling until 1:30, when eight workers appeared to be both talking about work and socializing until 1:50. During this period, two men were cleaning concrete barriers for perhaps 10 minutes, and no one helped them. This might have gone on all afternoon, but the INSIGHT reporter had to leave the site for an appointment.

I couldn’t believe the amount of money that was being wasted by people standing around doing nothing at the tune of $34.50/hr. including salary and benefits to the lowest paid workers, laborers. All this was forced by the unions who insisted that all workers receive the standard union wage.

Since Messrs. Kennedy and Kerry had no problems keeping the federal funds flowing from Wash. D.C. to Mass. many handouts were easily given; everybody withina few miles of the Big Dig got something. Since some of the construction work impacted the operations of the Main Postal Service Service’s facility we had one high level employee who was a liaison between the two parties whose $85,000 salary was paid for by the Big Dig. We were told to charge the Big Dig project for any time we were called to investigate or assist in the project to the tune of $29/hr or fraction thereof. We had some of the Postal Police force make well over $100,000/yr. half of their salary was paid from Big Dig funds.

The Boston Police have made over $50 million from working as flaggers for the project. The Bay State is the only one in the nation that does not allow civilian flaggers to direct traffic around construction sites, instead requiring that such work be done by police officers who earn at least $29 hourly.

Massachusetts yielded to virtually every complaint. In addition, it seems once the state's liberal politicians learned the federal government would be paying about 90 percent of Big Dig costs, they saw an opportunity to get Washington to pay to improve Boston's neighborhoods at the country's expense. Or, as a former high-level Big Dig official put it to INSIGHT: "Many elected officials and neighborhood groups saw the Big Dig as an opportunity to feed at the trough of the federal government."

Today the Boston Globe is reporting that Amorello, chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which oversees the Big Dig, will receive the first John Joseph Moakley Public Service Award, while Lewis, state project director, will get the Engineering Center Leadership Award.

What gall!! What cogliones!!! Two overseers of the biggest boondoggle in history are going to be honored with public service awards. Talk about putting the icing on the cake; this is a kick in the ass to all taxpayers whose money has been exploited without any checks and balances.

And to make this spoonful of castor oil harder to swallow is that it’s being paid for by Contractors on the Big Dig. They are chipping in at least $190,000 toward a gala dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston next week to honor Matthew J. Amorello and Michael P. Lewis, the two top state officials responsible for supervising the firms' work on the trouble-plagued project.

The sponsors include Bechtel Corp. and Parsons, Brinckerhoff Inc., the two engineering behemoths that formed a joint venture to design and manage the Big Dig. They are locked in a legal battle with the state over a claim for $108 million in refunds.

Some people will try to tell you that this is being paid with private funds and it shouldn’t be a cause of concern. BULL!!! Those are funds they made or stole from the taxpayers of this country.

I’m starting to keep score and making sure that I jot down all the names of the politicians in office, because when they come up for re-election I’ll make sure to vote for their opponent.