The 40 Bln number is BS. When it crashed, the funding to build was projected at about 10 Bln, which was much more than 4 Bln in a previous estimate, which was more than 1 Bln from an even more previous estimate. The physickers are not good money ppl, so the steady increase in projected funding caught the eye of many. But it was stablizing around the 10-11 Bln mark to build. I forget the projected annual maintenance costs, but it had to be much less.
It was a great bunch of ppl from all walks of life, local and from far away, all sorts of nationalities, etc. Locals who had lived for years and generations on farms and homes on the ground surface above where the collider ring was to be constructed were bought out (forcefully), uprooted, and moved. Many homes were picked up and moved to large “parking lots”. Others were simply leveled. 52 miles of this, which was largely open area, but still, ppl were packed up and moved out, for nothing. How’s that for getting a good taste of government BS.
The US government is probably the worst "business partner" you can have. They pull the plug on things when they are almost done, not just partially completed like the SSC. A number of people I know were canned when Clinton (Hillary) killed the IFR at Idaho Lab. Others I knew at LANL got the ax when Clinton killed the nuclear weapons program.