Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman
$100,000 in state funding is a drop in the bucket compared to what was ultimately spent on this very notable project funded with federal money. |
The Big Dig is again but a single one of hundreds of projects around the country funded by the government; unfortunately, the Big Dig just started hemorrhaging funds left and right, almost as quickly as the Boston Harbor tried in earnest to flood the tunnels. (But as someone who has been to and remembers Boston before the Big Dig, it is definitely a LOT better now).
But at the same time, had it not been for government funds, we wouldn't have had the first transcontinental railroad (and the economic boom that went with it), there would be no Interstate highways, and the Internet would have still been but a dream. All of those were funded by government projects, which could be considered "pork", and yet they all returned immense economic dividends many times more than the initial investment from the government.
I'm sure back before any one of those projects was proposed, I'm positive there were people who were like "Why should we spend millions to fund some research to get a computer to talk to another computer? There's only like five computers in the world, why is it worth it?" Now look where we are here today.
But at the same time, there are tons of other government projects which wasted money on useless things. But sometimes we don't know whether something will turn out to be the next best thing or a total dud until after we've studied it.
There is no magic answer; no definitive solution in absolutely no government funding or in total government funding. Rather, as in everything else in life, there's always that happy medium in the middle where everything usually settles out to that works the best.