In addition to an average of $150 million a year that gets taken out of statewide highway and bridge grants, Massachusetts pays an average of $60 million a year in interest out of the state Treasury....
Patrick has settled on the same solution. As part of his own $3 billion bridge repair program, Patrick is borrowing $1.1 billion from future federal grants, agreeing to make payments between 2015 and 2021"
And the GLOBE BLAMES REPUBLICANS!!!!
"Role in financing Big Dig may test Baker’s campaign" by Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | July 17, 2009
When the Big Dig was short on cash in the mid-1990s, state officials made a decision that is still affecting the quality of roads, bridges, and highway finances today. In exchange for $1.5 billion upfront, the state pledged to surrender to bondholders more than a quarter of its federal highway grants from 2006 through 2015, about $150 million per year.
At the time, Charles D. Baker, who announced last week that he is running for governor, defended a plan to increase short-term borrowing as a way to save money over the long term, by getting as much work done as possible before the cost of labor and materials went up....
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Nevertheless:
It is true that the project’s most startling cost overruns, a hidden $1.4 billion, were revealed in 2000, after Baker stepped down as secretary. But the first of the project’s three peak spending years began in 1998, before Baker left, when costs reached $4 million a day. And the overall projected price tag had already reached $10.8 billion by the time he left. It would eventually reach $15 billion.
And the Democrats in control of the state and federal legislature had nothing to do with it, right?
And the decision to assign the project, and much of its debt, to the Turnpike Authority in two bills passed in 1995 and 1997, was also crafted during Baker’s time as a top finance man on Beacon Hill. In 1997, when critics were cautioning that the state was not setting aside enough money to pay for the Big Dig, he defended the turnpike plan as “the right mechanism for dealing with a situation that everyone admits is going to be challenging.’’
Since then, the Turnpike Authority’s role has been attacked by Big Dig critics, who have complained that the authority, which has an unelected board, was not directly accountable to the public for cost overruns and that commuters on the turnpike were forced to pay an undue share of Big Dig debt through tolls.
That debate is still being fought on Beacon Hill, where an overhaul of the transportation system was recently passed, eliminating the Turnpike Authority as of November, though not the $2.4 billion debt it carries, largely courtesy of the Big Dig....
We call it the BIG PIT!
Although it was clear the state did not have the money for its share, there was no political will to raise taxes. The state was running out of places to borrow money, so it hatched a plan akin to a debtor who agrees to have future wages garnisheed to pay urgent bills.
That's STATE GOVERNMENT, all right!!
“We already were so heavily borrowing, the state, through the normal processes of borrowing,’’ said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. “And in this case, the price, I would argue, is high . . . almost a decade of sacrificing a third of our highway money.’’
In addition to an average of $150 million a year that gets taken out of statewide highway and bridge grants, Massachusetts pays an average of $60 million a year in interest out of the state Treasury. The debts taken out at the time have made it harder for the Patrick administration to pay for bridge repairs that engineers say are desperately needed.
So Patrick has settled on the same solution. As part of his own $3 billion bridge repair program, Patrick is borrowing $1.1 billion from future federal grants, agreeing to make payments between 2015 and 2021, when the Cellucci loans are paid off.
Patrick has made the same argument Baker made, that it saves money to spend money now, before inflation and wear and tear make repairs more expensive. And Widmer and other fiscal watchdogs are making similar criticisms, that borrowing into the future will extend the state’s cycle of poverty.
And THAT is the GOAL of STATE GOVERNMENT!!!
And CUI BONO, readers?
None of the earlier decisions were Baker’s alone, of course.
Oh, NOW the Globe tells us!!!
Related: Globe is Governor's Attack Dog
Key members of the Legislature, Weld and Cellucci and their staffs, and, significantly, former transportation secretary James J. Kerasiotes, and the Turnpike Authority all weighed in. Patrick’s transportation secretary, James A. Aloisi Jr., a former general counsel for the Turnpike Authority, drafted the actual legislation that put the turnpike in charge of the Big Dig.
It's STILL the SAME OLD CREW!!!!
And HERE is the OUTCOME:
"Authority to receive state credit backing
After several days of wrangling that nearly forced legislators to meet over the weekend, the state Senate passed a bill yesterday to extend $800 million in state credit backing to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. Governor Deval Patrick’s administration said it needs the agreement, previously passed by the House, as it attempts to stave off a potential payment of $255 million to Swiss financial giant
Oh, we are going to PAY OUT $255 MILLION(!!!!!) to the TAX-CHEATING ENABLERS!!?
You are SO F***ED, stoo-pid "liberals" of Massachushitts!
The authority entered into a complex set of credit transactions with UBS in 2001, when it needed cash for the Big Dig. A series of problems in the financial markets, combined with the Turnpike Authority’s poor credit rating, have put the agency at risk of having to make large lump sum payments to UBS.
--more--"
So THAT'S WHERE did ALL THAT $$$ WENT over the YEARS, because it sure as hell hasn't gone into services!
