|
Remember the old joke about the person with the unabashed spending habits: “how can I be out of money, I still have checks left?” This seems to be the approach that the DFL controlled legislature has taken during the 2008 Legislative session.
First, the liberal leadership passed a $6.6 billion transportation spending package with the commensurate tax increases just prior to the release of the state budget forecast. Then, after receiving the news that the state has a projected $935 million budget shortfall, they continued on their spending spree without concern, stating that they would wait to hear the Governor’s proposed solution.
Why let reality intrude on their fun?
Next, the liberals’ spending spree included a whopping $1.1 billion bonding bill. This legislation contains such necessary projects as a $40 million expansion of the Duluth Entertainment Center and millions more on parks and trails, environmental preservations and mitigations and, of course, new homes for polar bears in St. Paul and Duluth.
You many have noticed that the liberals in the Legislature have done an amazing about face regarding their moral aversion to using the State’s “credit card.” Just a week ago, it was immoral to saddle our children with debt to finance roads and bridges, despite the fact that our children’s children will be likely using those same roads and bridges 50 years from now.
But it’s not just the unnecessary spending contained in the bill that should appall taxpayers; there’s the magnitude of the debt. The bonding bill exceeds by $80 million the limit of debt the state issues. Once again the DFL appears to be unfazed by their level of spending or the fact there is a billion dollar budget gap. But wait! There’s more! As the famous radio news personality Paul Harvey states, “And now here’s the rest of the story.”
Because a billion dollars in state debt is not enough, liberal spenders in the House and Senate have added a provision to their bonding bills to pay for $233 million of bioscience buildings by stating that there will be yearly payments to the University of Minnesota, who will technically be the bond issuers. That way it’s not called debt owed by the State. The State will of course pick up the tab and pay for the buildings by promising the money to the University, but it won’t be called state debt.
The rationale for this maneuver is simple bribery; dozens of smaller pet projects (more commonly referred to as “pork”) would have to be excluded from the bill unless they came up with this shell game.
The bottom line is that this means the DFL wants to spend $233 million on top of the $1.1 billion. This is in addition to the $6.6 billion on transportation before they have given any thought to how to solve the State’s $1 billion budget problem.
Just as P.J. O’Rourke says, “giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
If all those numbers make your head spin, don’t worry. In the world of liberal accounting the actual numbers don’t seem to matter at all. Their answer to a constitutional requirement to balance the budget is, “ignore it.” Spend as much as you can now and worry about the consequences later.
Over the past few years liberals have been mouthing pieties about being dedicated to fiscal responsibility, which always seemed to me to be an odd message for the tax and spend crowd.
No need to worry, that’s been just a lot of malarkey. It turns out that the liberal DFLers have simply invented a new form of fiscal responsibility. They get to spend the money and the Governor gets to clean up the mess and balance the books once they are done.
Or maybe they just believe that they can continue spending, despite the real bank balance. After all, there are still checks left. |
