Free bonding money!!!

"And here is where the slight of hand comes in. Money spent today in bonding becomes part of tomorrow's budget." 

Free money! What is there not to love? Yippie skippie! I really don't see what the problem is. If you can't get boondoggle projects into the budget, just bond them! Maybe we should just bond the entire state budget, then we would not need any more state taxes!

Okay - enough of this foolishness. Of course bonding is not free money. It is similar to going to Costco and buying up the joint and putting the entire charge purchase on your American Express card. When you walk out of the store, you really do feel like you just received a whole bunch of stuff for free. And that feeling continues until the American Express bill comes due. That is when the buyer's hangover comes - and sometimes it comes in spades.

State bonding is absolutely no different. It is money spent which must be paid back. And here is where the slight of hand comes in. Money spent today via bonding, becomes part of tomorrow's budget. Yep - it has to be paid back with interest (albeit the interest rate today is almost zero). 

Case in point. The Governor would like to have $1.5B in "free bonding money" authorized this year. Of course there is money in that $1.5B for another choo-choo train! The Speaker does not want to bond that much - maybe about $600M (which is about $600M too much). Here is the kicker. By law, all bonding bills need to originate in the House. There is zero support to bond $135M for ANOTHER choo-choo train. So the odds of any money being in a bonding bill for SWLRT are practically zero.

Of course if the state does not authorize that $135M for the SWLRT, then the additional "free federal money" that will accompany it will be in jeopardy. Boo freaking hoo.

One more thing. Those of us who would really like to see our state spending brought under control, hate bonding. Simply hate it. It is the worst way in the world to spend money. And as long as we continue to bond, we will NEVER live in a low tax state. And as long as we insist (thanks for nothing Dayton) on living in a HIGH TAX state, our wealth migration out of this state will continue.