Monday, January 14, 2019

Border Wall: A Monument for the People, Not Pols

Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters
Wouldn’t it be refreshing for the federal government to prioritize infrastructure that serves the national interest over special interests?
Profligate politicians have never met a multibillion-dollar infrastructure project they didn’t like — except when it comes to President Donald Trump’s border wall.
Think about it.
Boston’s Big Dig black hole, the nation’s most expensive highway project, burned through $25 billion and was plagued by deadly engineering incompetence, endless cost overruns, leaks, lawsuits, and debt.
California’s high-speed rail boondoggle is a $100 billion bullet train to nowhere. Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown promised a 2020 completion date for the miracle transportation system. The latest estimates predict it won’t open until at least 2033, and the costs keep rising.
Seattle’s ill-fated Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement topped out at $4 billion in local, state, and federal funds for a two-mile bored road tunnel that will finally open next month — nearly four years behind schedule and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.
What the Big Dig, bullet-train boondoggle, and Seattle squander all have in common is that political elites, lobbyists, and corporate heavy hitters trampled over grassroots citizen opposition to get their way. Too many government construction projects are built because these publicly subsidized gravy trains reward campaign donors, powerful public-employee unions, and assorted control freaks in the urban-planning and transportation sectors.
Read the rest from Michelle Malkin HERE.

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