[bvandewalle]

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Elected officials unfortunately don't have that much incentive to hire the "cheapest" company as the debt will be incurred over the next 100 years while they will be long gone.

They probably hire the company that they feel will give them the least amount of trouble, which is the easiest to navigate or that will do something for them in exchange. It's the "not my money" issue at play.

[selectodude]

I think it's quite the opposite. There is heavy incentive to pick the lowest bidder without any consideration paid to how absurd the bid is, which is where you get these crazy cost overruns. The bid was never doable to begin with.

[imtringued]

And once there is a cost overrun it's easy to bloat the budget because the government is stuck with the contractor they hired.