Sunk-cost pressure traps legislators who authorized spending they cannot inspect
Evidence
The foundation laid, Moses invited Hewitt and Hutchinson down to see what he had done. To make matters stickier, blowing sand had completely buried the foundation the night before they arrived, and there was not a trace of it visible. All that existed, as far as the two legislators could see, was a god-forsaken sand bar that could be of no possible use to anyone—and the knowledge that, somewhere on it, on their authorization, had been spent $150,000 of the taxpayers’ money. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 989
Categorization
- SEED: A concrete modern example of the sunk-cost trap at institutional scale — usable in a piece about why politicians and managers cannot reverse bad project starts.
- XREF: connects to: Understating costs forces legislators into a sunk-cost trap — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 964; Underestimating project costs forces legislatures to keep funding them — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 963; The appropriations form forced governors to affirm compensation they could not verify — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 811 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Underestimating project costs forces legislatures to keep funding them
#expands(0.88) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 963 - The appropriations form forced governors to affirm compensation they could not verify
#exemplifies(0.78) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 811 - Legislative workload precludes any informed deliberation on each bill
#corroborates(0.75) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 3854