On Wednesday yet another government board populated by political hacks will meet to discuss how to best put the taxpayers on the hook for their mismanagement, bad decions and subsequent shortfalls. Once again the MBTA, whose Board of Directors is tasked with balancing its own budget, is over budget. Since January, when the projected fiscal 2013 budget shortfall was 185+ million, the board has found a way to get it down to around 84 million. In this latest episode of doomsday politics the board and the Patrick administration are begging the state legislature to kick in 51 million dollars to try and avoid fare hikes of 23% to 45% and drastic service cuts, as if that money is theirs to spend indiscriminatley. Tim Murray, our beloved NASCAR Race car driver wanna be, goes as far as to tell us he thinks the MBTA is under funded by over 1 Billion dollars. If true, shouldn't that be enough incentive for our pols to discuss better ways of dealing with the long term problems in this agency? It seems to me the taxpayers would be much better off without such a money wasting enterprise as the MBTA, especially if the solutions proposed so far are truly the only ones available. Of course they are not.
Here are a couple of alternative ones I thought of in the few minutes it has taken to write this blog. First off, what about selling the whole thing to the highest bidder and privatizing it? If not that, Heaven forbid, then how about a freeze on all salary increases until the budget is balanced? What about ripping up the 29 union contracts and cutting the bloated salaries they create down to size. I mean do we really need to be paying bus drivers $70,000+ per year with all of the out of touch bennies to boot? Would it be too hard for the Transportation Secretary to take the $100,000+ dollars a year spent on individual parking attendants at Logan Airport and put that money towards the MBTA budget. Or how about making the same corrupt people who approved the out of touch outrageous union contracts get on the phone to the Obama Administration and secure a couple billion dollars from the stimulus package of 2009. After all a large portion of those funds have still not been spent.
Instead, predictably, we will hear the all too familiar Bacon Hill vitriol about riders needing to pay more due to increased fuel costs and the need for more revenue generating projects (Democrat double speak for higher taxes on everyone, whether they use the T or not.) They will publicly lament the "fixed" cost of the union contracts and insist there is nothing to be done about them. They will be lying of course but no one will question their arguments. What we won't hear are any discussions about cutting the budget in the drastic way it needs. Oh no, not that. After all lifestyles need to be maintained and besides, where would all the displaced politically connected workers go?
