Robert Moses’s playbook:

  • Moses boasted, “Once you sink that first stake, they’ll never make you pull it.” By breaking ground fast he locked officials and taxpayers into a project, making cancellation politically unthinkable thanks to the sunk cost fallacy.
  • Moses used to hide the real price tag up front. He systematically low-balled budgets and played down risks to win approval; overruns were addressed only after construction was under way, when legislators felt compelled to keep funding rather than admit an earlier mistake.
  • Moses started as a Progressive Era civil service crusader, but early defeats taught him that raw power, not policy memos, got things built. He evolved from reformist technocrat to hard-nosed political operator.
  • Civil-service pay limits couldn’t stop patronage: when loyal aides needed extra income, Moses simply put their wives on the Parks Department payroll to top up household earnings.
  • He cultivated a “I don’t need the money” image. His reputation for self denial was not correct, he served many of his dozen posts without official salaries, while quietly directing vast authority budgets that rewarded allies.
  • Moses built a cross-sector machine. Banks profited from private bond sales, unions gained years of steady construction work, contractors landed lucrative jobs, and even church leaders such as Cardinal Spellman were courted for public endorsements: ensuring a wide coalition defended Moses’s decisions.