Posted on 09/24/2008 2:17:05 PM PDT by grundle
...the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to $22 billion... It will not be paid off until 2038.
Big Dig payments have already sucked maintenance and repair money away from deteriorating roads and bridges across the state, forcing the state to float more highway bonds and to go even deeper into the hole.
Among other signs of financial trouble: The state is paying almost 80 percent of its highway workers with borrowed money; the crushing costs of debt have pushed the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which manages the Big Dig, to the brink of insolvency; and Massachusetts spends a higher percentage of its highway budget on debt than any other state.
"The Big Dig saddled us with costs we can't afford," said Bernard Cohen, secretary of transportation. "We are grappling with that legacy now. There are no easy answers."
The debt is a big part of why Massachusetts had the highest tax-supported debt per capita in the United States last year.
During the last three years, Massachusetts spent the most of any state, by far, 38 percent of its highway budget, on debt payments, according to Globe analysis of federal data. The median is less than 6 percent nationally.
The state has also been forced to meet payroll demands for 1,400 Massachusetts Highway Department workers with borrowed money because it does not have enough cash to pay them. That means that painters and clerical workers paid around $18 an hour cost the state $28.80 an hour. The 80 percent of the workforce being paid with borrowed money compares to 14 percent before the Big Dig work began.
The Big Dig, which makes up 7.5 miles of an 11,000-mile system, gobbled up about 40 percent of those funds during the last 17 years, data show.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
No problem.
Just raise taxes.
I’m not a liberal, but I do live there. In the words of Mr. Bill, “Ohhhh, nooooooo!”
Democrats are gifted with the Reverse MIDAS touch..Everything they touch turns to crap...
Tip O’Neil ..enough said.
m.o.v.i.n.g. —> great escape from this cesspool of a state is October 4, 2008...
Guess they will want a bailout for their tunnel thrown in the mix.
lololol
Bail Mass out...
If we can bail out a private company, we can bail out a state...
Just fold it in with the rest...
Whats a few more billion in a trillion?
Want to bet ol Barney Frank somehow slips some of that bailout cash into this?
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving place.
Just keep electing all those flaming liberals that keep spending your money there Mass.
Horrayy!!!!
Boston deserves this and More!!!
run By Democrats and the Mafia
I hope you all drown in Red Ink...
Everyday, garden variety corruption in the Commonwealth of Marxachusetts; the proles exist merely to make the commissars rich. If you think the Big Dig was expensive, wait until you see the bill for Mass Health.
is it true there is a ballot initiative to eliminate state taxes of some sort this year?
Maybe the state could get a Payday loan on next years state income taxes! LOL! That’ll fix it!
Original Big Dig Tunnel/Road System $22 Billion. With a useful life of 40 years, cost per year is $550 Million per year.
RomneyCare, the New Big Dig has a price tag of a $ Billion per year, every year, to start, and growing each year, with no end in sight, forever.
Makes the tunnel look like a great deal.
Massachusetts spent the most of any state, by far, 38 percent of its highway budget, on debt payments, ...
It looks like that is what they did, or perhaps a Mafia loan shark.
Yes, there is a ballot initiative to eliminate the state income tax - I’ll be voting for it.
Hey Mr. K,
Sorry for the delay...
Yes, the ballot initiative to eliminate the Mass Income Tax is called Question 1. I will be voting yes. However, in two months the legislature can just repeal it (because that’s the crazy way things are up here), but I’d love to see the panic during those two months.
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