Lights Out
I’m not sure if they are trying to impress us or punish us. Probably a little of both. But the spendthrifts at the Massachusetts Turnpike, who literally cost Massachusetts and federal taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars in wasteful cost overruns on the Big Dig, turned off the blue lights on the Zakim Bridge’s suspension cables tonight to save money. The lights cost something like $60,000 a year. They are also talking about turning off lights in the tunnels, which leak and killed a woman when part of the concrete ceiling, held up by glue, collapsed. I’m pretty sure they could find a do-nothing relative of some state rep to lay off to make up that difference. Technically, by the way, it is the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge. In an earlier phase, it was the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Freedom Bridge. Because this is Massachusetts, and that’s how screwed up things are here. The hacks can’t even figure out how to name a bridge, and they have wasted so much money giving each other jobs and failing to do them properly, that they can’t afford to light it.
The joke used to be, Massachusetts, last one out turn the lights off. But nobody’s going anywhere any more. Nowhere to go. Now it’s just Massachusetts, turn the lights off.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:13 pm on Thursday, April 9, 2009
One Response to “Lights Out”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Man,
How does this not surprise me? Hows about Cadillac DeVal simply cuts off one of his aids and uses the salary to keep the bridge lit.
Oh wait… heh. Silly me. My mistake. Caddy would never fire anyone. He’d rather work with Mumbles and the State legislature to see if they could tax someone for to raise the money to keep the lights on. Let’s see now. Hows about a 10-cents per meal tax on school lunches? Maybe a 5-cent per item tax on sanitary napkins and tampons? Heck, if they’d just tax the State Legislators at 10-cents per word, the whole state could operate with a surplus and not have to collect a penny in taxes OR tolls. :)
One by one, the lights in the Commonwealth wink out, and the good people reap the crop that they have sewn.