Living in the DC metropolitan area means you are always surrounded by politicians. And, in today’s society, that almost always means you are being surrounded by folks who are skilled mendicants. It gets even ‘better’ when the news media explains their actions by saying this is to be expected.

I was considering three or four of the biggest projects in the area. (Two of which not only involved overruns- but terrible construction- so they are still unused.)  And, these cost overruns are the understatement of the year. Think Big Dig (Boston’s big construction project) and the billions in overruns it incurred. (In case you don’t know, it was only $ 20 billion more than the $ 2 billion estimate….)

Why does this happen? Because these officials knowingly lie about (oh, wait, they “underestimate”) the costs for a project, saying it won’t take new tax revenue to complete. (Now, here’s a real fact. We need to raise taxes now and invest in our country. We need to replace our bridges, roads, schools- because ours are falling apart. We can then worry about building new things- only if we set up a maintenance program to insure they will be well-cared for over their lifetime.) These officials feel that they can ask for forgiveness later- or, better yet (at least from their small mind perspective), leave the overruns to their successors.

But, the real problem is that these projects are managed (sic) as if changes, alterations, and accommodations don’t cost money. Most citizens would understand if there were a sudden shortage of XYZ, which means costs would be higher. But, many of the overruns come about because the locality says they can acquire the property for pennies- when they know the property owner is not going to take a bath on its investment to satisfy the hubris of the local officials.

Or, the project is proposed and then studied for five years. Which means speculators may buy some of the land involved, planning to hold out for higher prices. Or, the costs of goods have escalated making the project yet more expensive. Or both. Couple these with failing to penalize the contractors for not making schedule or not performing as required, then you can see the overruns are, indeed,  destined to occur.

But, there could be valid reasons why the costs are higher. For example, if we need to replace a bridge, do we tear down the old one and make everyone find a new way to get from point A to point B, while we construct the new one? That’s one way we can keep land acquisition costs reasonable- but what about the costs to each and every taxpayer or visitor who know must drive longer distances or in more traffic because we elected this process?

The real reason that these overruns are normal is because many projects are conceived in a fashion similar to the “back of the envelope” concept that exists for many a start-up. Then, the public is made aware of the project, so they can provide feedback. Once there is significant backing for a given project (or significant political donations to insure it will proceed), that’s when the real estimates are developed. But, John Q. Public (that’s you and me) remember that first price we were quoted- and that’s where the bigger disappointment lies.

It’s akin to the old way of buying a car. We knew a car cost $ X- but then there were all these extras we needed, until the price was much higher. Or, buying a ticket to paradise- where the price listed for the flight does not include taxes, airport fees, baggage checking (why don’t they use those funds to insure it’s delivered in a timely fashion?), etc.   So, that discount ticket cost is now almost twice as much as we expected

And, that leaves an unhappy consumer or taxpayer.

It’s time to stop this practice on all fronts.