For critics of government excess, the Maine Turnpike Authority is a big target. You can even see it from outer space.

“Ick,” said an observer on the International Space Station. “Somebody in Maine forgot to curb their enormous dog.”

Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to get rid of the MTA by merging it with the state Department of Transportation. Those efforts have all failed. The reformers sometimes claim they can’t eliminate the authority because doing so wouldn’t save any money. Or they say there are legal complications involving the turnpike’s debt. But mostly, attempts to dissolve the MTA just fizzle out.

There’s a reason for that, and NASA is in a perfect position to tell us what it is: The Maine Turnpike Authority can’t be eliminated, because it has a reservoir of political juice so large you can see it from outer space.

“Ick,” said the space-station observer. “That giant dog really had to go.”

Over the last decade, the MTA has been involved in a series of costly mistakes and ethical lapses, but nobody on the staff has been fired and no member of the board of directors has been asked to resign. That’s serious clout.

NASA should have it so easy.

Let’s start with Transpass, the $20-million electronic toll-collection system installed in 1997 and uninstalled eight years later, mostly because it didn’t work. According to an op-ed column by turnpike executive director Paul Violette, Transpass was a success because it produced “savings that have more than paid for the Transpass system.” At the time Violette made that statement, that system was four years old, and he estimated it had cut costs by $4 million per year. That comes to $16 million in savings, which was $4 million less than the Transpass price tag.

Another problem: According to Violette, most of that reduction in expenses was due to the elimination of 68 toll takers. If that’s true, each of those ex-employees had been pulling down an annual salary and benefits package worth nearly $60,000.

Momma should have let her little boy grow up to be a toll taker.

One more difficulty with the alleged Transpass savings: Because the system lacked the ability to prevent drivers from cruising through toll plazas without paying, it cost the turnpike nearly a quarter-million bucks in lost revenue over its first four years.

Fortunately, the MTA came up with a simple solution to those problems: Spend more money.

For a mere $10 million, Transpass was replaced by E-ZPass. E-ZPass works most of the time and is compatible with the technology used in neighboring states, something nobody took into consideration when deciding to shell out $20 million for Transpass. But E-ZPass still might be another mistake. Some turnpikes are experimenting with stickers that carry bar codes. No transponders. No batteries. No obsolescence. And it costs a lot less, too.

Maybe the authority’s staff should be discussing this stuff with consultants. Oh, they did. Over plates of lobster and filet mignon, washed down with a $295 bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild ’99. Add in cocktails, appetizers and dessert, and the bill for this 2006 “business dinner” involving five turnpike employees and four consultants came to $149 per person. But don’t worry. It wasn’t your toll money covering the tab. A consultant took care of that.

Accepting such an extravagant gift didn’t violate the turnpike’s code of ethics – because it didn’t have a code of ethics. Nor was this the first time people with contracts with the authority had picked up the check. It was just the first time the news media found out about it.

In the wake of that revelation, the authority drafted ethical guidelines prohibiting the acceptance of gifts. But only after a lot of whining about how nobody had done anything illegal.

After all that stress, the turnpike’s power brokers needed to get away. Vienna, Austria is lovely in October, and since that was the site of the 2007 annual meeting of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, the cost could be covered by the authority for the executive director, his finance guy and three board members to the tune of $26,000. Violette defended the junket in a statement to the Associated Press, saying that without valuable information gained at an earlier IBTTA conference, the Maine Turnpike wouldn’t have been the first in New England to institute electronic toll collections with Transpass.

The guy has chutzpah.

Or amnesia.

The authority is now building a new $6 million headquarters in South Portland. Whoops, that was the 2004 estimate. The price is now $12 million. Or it was back in 2006. This year, it’s more like $13.5 million.

But you can be sure those increased costs are necessary, because you can’t expect the turnpike’s 400 workers – the same number the authority employed in 1997 before all those Transpass-related layoffs saved so much money – to work in a building so small it can’t be seen from outer space.

Keep me grounded by e-mailing aldiamon@herniahill.net.