Your hard-earned tax dollars at work

The Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill Jr. Tunnel in Boston, much like its namesake, has been found to be a creaky, bloated mess that's full of liquid (water instead of booze in this case), as well as being a complete waste of the money that the Federal government took from you on pain of imprisonment to build in the first place.

The "Big Dig" has now cost over 15 billion dollars of your money to build and repair, which is more than three times the 4 billion original cost estimate. Even after the government spent money on construction like drunken sailors (Senators Kerry and Kennedy championed the project), the darn thing leaks, and they can't get it under control. As a matter of fact, the rate of leakage is increasing, and the only fix the officials propose is throwing more money at the problem.

This is in addition to the little problem of three ton concrete panels falling off the roof of the tunnel, one of which has already killed a woman and which, according to friends of mine who live in the Boston area, makes them scared and nervous to use their shiny new thoroughfare, with good reason. I've already reported on how the Massachusetts Turnpike "Authority" has tried mightily to seal the documents in the lawsuit resulting from that death. Why? Say it with me, everyone, "For Security Reasons", the all-encompassing excuse that's supposed to make us never question what people in charge are doing. Here's a site with a large collection of links detailing exactly how incompetently this project was managed from the very beginning. Caution, take your blood pressure meds before reading it.

Please remember examples such as this, as well as all of the hundreds of make-work pork projects in West Virginia named after Senator Robert Byrd, D-KKK, when your elected officials come to you complaining that they need even more of your money for "vital" services and projects.