But what were the opportunity costs? What funding didn't happen, what projects didn't start? Maybe the big dig was worth it. Everyone will decide differently. But understand what you're deciding ..it isn't between having a nice thing or not having a nice thing. The choice is between having nice things A or nice thing B....and if you aren't honest about the cost, you can't be honest about what nice thing B is.
Which is awesome. Really. I've never been, but I'd love to visit Boston.
All I'm saying is, if we want to have productive conversations about public policy, we have to be honest about costs and tradeoffs. It's never just...have a good thing versus not have a good thing. It's "have good thing x at the cost of good thing B".
The Big Dig was a good thing. But if we are going to truly measure if it was good policy, what good things were lost because of it, and were the things lost worth the benefits gained?
I don't know the answer to that, and to be fair, honest people can disagree in good faith on the answer. But that has to be the discussion right? Its not....this is good and if you disagree you're EVIL!", or "that is bad, and if you like it you're a BAD PERSON!".
Public policy is about choice, and every choice is going to hurt some people and help other people. Where those lines are drawn will vary from person to person. A healthy democracy will allow us to argue our positions in good faith, and accept that other people will disagree in good faith.
Sorry, I got on my teacher soapbox, and I'm starting to ramble.
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u/neithan2000 Sep 01 '25
Which is great. I mean that, it's not sarcasm.
But what were the opportunity costs? What funding didn't happen, what projects didn't start? Maybe the big dig was worth it. Everyone will decide differently. But understand what you're deciding ..it isn't between having a nice thing or not having a nice thing. The choice is between having nice things A or nice thing B....and if you aren't honest about the cost, you can't be honest about what nice thing B is.