text: Is there anyone who thinks this boondoggle is only going to cost $10 billion? If the original $4 billion price tag was a complete fantasy, the current $10 billion estimate is a "polite fiction" at best.  Once they add in all the financing costs, utility impacts and escalating construction overruns, we will be lucky to see it all done for less than $20 billion. And the worst part is that the knuckleheads who green-lit the project knew that from the start. But they also knew the average voter was too gullible to notice.