The Missing $7 Billion

How do you lose $7 billion? You have to be entrusted with the public's money, for starters. Sound Transit - which claims to strive for credibility even while hiding the true costs of its projects (try to find an honest amount anywhere in it public documents online) -  says it recently counted some of its costs twice when estimating its Sound Transit 2 light-rail expansion price tag. Instead of $37.9 billion, a figure it reluctantly confirmed last month to the Seattle Times, the estimate was lowered to $30.7 billion last week after someone outside the agency noticed the accounting error - a double counting of $7 billion in construction financing costs (really, how do you lose $7 billion?). But even that "lower" $30 billion figure revealed by the Times is something the agency prefers not to discuss, telling the public the tab is only $10.8 billion, which is unequivocally false. The public, which is to vote on ST2 this fall, in fact will pay as much as $20 billion more over 50 years once other costs, including financing, are added. ST thinks interest on borrowing doesn't count, any more than you'd count it when buying a house (even though, unlike a house buyer who might sell the place after a few years, taxpayers will have to pay the full tab for ST2). That's the lie most government agencies perpetuate when they want to peddle a plan, and some, such as the Seattle Monorail Project, deservedly fail once true costs are exposed. Yet ST doesn't hold itself to such standards. After all, this is the agency that, facing billions in overruns, declared its projects on time and on budget by just forgetting about the first five years. It's a great way to run a transit agency: If the train's late, just move the clock.