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Well......why not?

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(Note: All of the following was cut and pasted.)

The Big Dig project has become a symbol of government contracting gone awry, known for its huge cost overruns that now total several billion dollars and its admissions of mismanagement. During the 1990s, Sens. Kerry and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., helped win new federal funding for the project as its costs skyrocketed and threatened to burden the state?s government. In 1998, Kerry was credited with winning $100 million in new federal funding.

John Kerry said that his intervention on a legislative matter that affected the nation?s most expensive highway project had nothing to do with an insurer who benefited from his action and later gave him tens of thousands of dollars in donations............In the two years after the Big Dig issue, American International Group paid Kerry?s way on a trip to Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group Kerry used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives also donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns, according to records obtained by the AP.

But in 1999, Department of Transportation auditors discovered that Big Dig managers had overpaid $129.8 million to American International Group for worker compensation and liability insurance that wasn?t needed, then allowed the insurer to keep the money and invest it in the market. The government alleged AIG kept half the profits it made from the investments, providing the other half to the project.

Some government watchdogs said Kerry?s story is a textbook case of Washington special-interest politicking that he rails against on the presidential trail.

The idea that Kerry has not helped or benefited from a specific special interest, which he has said, is utterly absurd," said Charles Lewis, head of the Center for Public Integrity, which just published a book on political donations to the presidential candidates.

"Anyone who gets millions of dollars over time and thousands of dollars from specific donors knows there?s a symbiotic relationship," Lewis said. "He needs the donors? money. The donors need favors. Welcome to Washington. That is how it works."

The documents obtained by the AP detail Kerry?s effort as a member of the Senate Commerce Committee to persuade committee chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., to drop legislation that would have stripped $150 million from the Big Dig project and ended the insurance-funding loophole.

The Massachusetts Democrat actually was critical of the loophole but didn?t want money stripped from the project because it would hurt his constituents who needed the Boston project finished, campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said.

In September 2001, AIG paid an estimated $540 in travel expenses to cover Kerry?s costs for a speech in Burlington, Vt., according to a Senate report filed by Kerry.

In December 2001, several AIG executives gave maximum $1,000 donations to Kerry?s Senate campaign on the same day. The donations totaled $9,700 and were followed by several thousand dollars more over the next two years.

Source:

http://www.showmenews.com/2004/Feb/20040208News030.asp

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A Harvard-affiliated academic institute studying the Big Dig has uncovered a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign by a high-powered Boston business group that says it persuaded US Senator John F. Kerry to silence his criticisms of cost overruns.....

http://www.arterybusiness.com/abccsglobe12.25.03.htm

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A U.S. Senate transportation bill unveiled in Washington yesterday slashes funding for Massachusetts below the state's "worst-case" Big Dig scenario, setting the stage for a battle to retain a more generous House version of the bill.

"This is an outrageous and unfair proposal that would devastate Massachusetts and the important ongoing transportation projects in our state," U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said in a brief statement yesterday.

U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry called the $145 billion bill released by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee "unbalanced and ...

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John Kerry wants voters to believe he will be the president who reclaims the White House from special interests.......Boston?s Big Dig in Sen. Kerry?s home state of Massachusetts is a fine example of how special interests use their influence in Washington to drain money from the federal treasury........The recently opened Big Dig is a 7.5-mile underground freeway replacing an unsightly elevated roadway that marred Boston?s skyline. The Big Dig is also the largest public works boondoggle in history. In today?s dollars, it cost twice as much as the Panama Canal. But without the universal benefit the canal produced....... President Ronald Reagan saw this coming in 1987 and tried to veto funding. But he was outmuscled in the Senate by Massachusetts? Ted Kennedy, who secured the initial $3 billion....... When an outraged Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tried to shut off the flow of federal dollars to Boston in 2000, Kerry kept the spigot open.

http://www.detnews.com/2004/editorial/0401/27/a13-44498.htm

(Gee, and Kerry won Michigan. go figure.)

"Democratic Party leaders said Wednesday they want to know why Sen. John Kerry ended his presidential campaign with more than $15 million in the bank, money that could have helped"...................pay for the BIG DIG!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/2004-11-17-kerry-nest-egg_x.htm

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Keep em' coming.

cash laying around....perhaps he could arrange a tax cut in the amount of 14.6 billions dollars and pay for it out of his pocket....
(In the spirit of bypartisan goodwill, I have edited this post.....)