Which came first; the revenue problem or the spending problem?

This weekend I recounted for the readers of this fine establishment my shocking discovery that the Johnston County Commissioners might actually have, as the astroturf group JCPOATT asserts, a spending problem.

In my diary I railed against bonds and the $29 million in interest charges JoCo Tax payers are paying as a result of our addiction to them. :) It's not that I hate bonds. I like them just fine. They are very useful, yes, even beneficial, when they're used judiciously.

What I don't like is the over use of bonds.

My 2007 County tax bill says that interest costs (Debt Service) account for 17% of Johnston County's total spending. I admit to having a rather simple mind when it comes to mathematics, but doesn't that mean that 17% of my tax bill is interest? If that's what I was paying in interest on my car, I'd call it highway robbery. If that's what you were paying in interest on your mortgage I'd call you a damned fool.

Please don't confuse this discussion with amortization tables. As long as 17% of the money coming out my single-parent's pocket is going to a for-profit bank for interest payments, I don't give a damn about the mechanics of an amortization table.

BUT ... BUT!!! ... here is the noodle bending REST of the story.

What does it really mean that we pay so much in interest? Why did we have to borrow all that money in the first place?

To build the schools we absolutely had to build.

But why did we have to borrow so much and why do we have to vote on bonds every dang year it seems like?

Umm. Because our revenue can't keep up with the demands of rapid growth.

dOH!!!

Bubba Astroturf does not want the truth to get out, but

we vote on bonds every year, seems like

because

we have a REVENUE PROBLEM!!!

And 17% of your tax dollar goes -- not to education -- not to help grandma and grandpa -- not for state-of-the-art sewer and water systems -- but into the banker's profit column -- because why????

Because we've had a revenue problem for two decades now and it's only getting worse.

If we didn't have to borrow so much to build the stuff we absolutely NEED we'd have less of a spending problem than we do now because we'd have had less of a borrowing problem for the last twenty years.

So, which came first, the spending problem? the borrowing problem? or the revenue problem?

Yep, that's right: The revenue problem came first.

It's the revenue problem that needs fixing.

Till next time, boys and girls, sleep tight and don't let the money bug bite. ;)

[Here's the funny little caveat in all the astroturf advertising the Home Ticks have been doing ... the anti-Transfer Tax folks are out spreading it on thick about the all Republican Johnston County Commissioners have a spending problem. Wait till the Democrats use that bat against them in the 2008 elections.]