Governor Romney finally gets resignation from head of the BIG DIG.

The other day, there was a heart-attack victim being rushed to the hospital when the ambulance got stuck in a Big-Dig related back-up for 24 minutes (usually a 4-minute trip). The guy died. It's indirect, but it's still a death.

Man dies in tunnel backup

-PJ

Romney has very little control over the Turnpike Authority. Many states, like Massachusetts and New York, have no legal authority to incur debt. So instead they form semi-autonomous "authorities" like the Port of New York Authority, the New York Dormitory Authority or the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. These entities issue bonds that do not carry the "full faith and credit" of the state but are "moral obligations". The Mass. Turnpike Auth. is suppose to pay off bonds with receipts from tolls. Romney basically took a run at Amarello when he was down politically, it isn't at all clear he has any legal authority to fire him, even for gross mismanagement.

I think Mitt would have liked to have cleaned out the Turnpike Authority his first day in office.

Interesting story about the New York Dormitory Authority. It was formed to build the 58 or so campus (forth declension, plural: campus) of SUNY back in the 50's and 60's. Mario Cuomo had them "buy" the prisons from the state for like a billion large. The Dormitory paid for the sale by issuing bonds which would be paid off from - rent received from the state over the next forty years from the prisons it just bought. A very cute way for a state which is constitutionally barred from borrowing money to borrow money! I hate Democrats.

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