PLUNGING TAXPAYERS INTO DEBT MUST NOT BE POPULAR…
BECAUSE THEY SURE DIDN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT IT
The House Ways and Means Committee recently slipped in a $497 million bond proposal into the state budget. The public had no chance to voice concerns about the proposal to borrow a half-billion dollars: the bond package was slipped into the Ways and Means budget just before final passage.
In a year when lawmakers claim to be concerned about the state’s decrepit roads and bridges, one might expect that the borrowed money would go toward road maintenance.
Wrong.
The money – which South Carolina taxpayers will have to pay back with interest – would instead fund a program to train workers for a multinational company whose annual profits are several times larger than South Carolina’s entire state budget. It would also go to a slew of pet projects that have nothing to do with improving the state’s roads.
Some lawmakers contend that South Carolina’s bond debt isn’t really that bad, so we can afford it. Are they right. Uh, no.