E-Corridor Money There After All (Ed Bond)
Wow, I am really glad that the people of Arkansas voted those "education" bonds down. It now turns out that the most talked-about improvement on their list will be funded anyway........
By Mark Moore (click "comments" below for article)
By Mark Moore (click "comments" below for article)
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Thursday, December 29, 2005
6 Comments:
When politicians and educrats around the state were trying to convince people to approve the education bonds, the need most often cited was for an "E-Corridor". The "E-Corridor" would give our universities access to a high-speed internet network with other universities. It was pointed out that our surrounding states were already hooked in, and that it would allow us to video conference and share research data on a massive scale.
It sounded legitimate to me. It is legitimate. But one thing nagged at me. Actually two, the first being the "creative financing" used to psuedo-pay-off the old bonds at either a savings, or at a loss (no one could know in advance the way it was structured). But we have already talked about that here at AW, even if it has not been talked about by the establishment media- so back to the first thing. The first thing that nagged at me was that the #1 discussed project could have been done with a relatively small amount of money- $10 million.
Was it really necessary to borrow $250 million in order to find $10 million for the E-corridor? I did not think so. The other projects on their list did not impress me as urgent. For example our local community college wanted to give a face lift to their main building- which was only 15 years old.
Well, it turns out that our good buddies in the state's higher education system were just funnin' with us a little. It turns out a lot of them can find the money to hook up to the E-Corridor with current revenues!
The article is here...
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/12/23/News/332202.html
Oh, sure, they would have loved to do it on your credit card, but it turns out that between them and the Governor the money is pretty much on hand. So why all the urgent talk last month about how we needed to go into debt for this? Well, they just wanted to put your kids in debt until 2031 so that they would still have that money for other neat stuff. Stuff that you would not approve of as much as an E-Corridor.
My counsel to my fellow citizens of the Republic is to watch these people very closely, and actively support elected officials who will do the same.
They're so shameless, they don't even make an effort to hide the fact they lied.
There was no lie. The money recently announced for the UofA to connect to E-corridor was appropriated by the legislature last session.
However, if the bonds had passed, the other four-year colleges in the state could have been hooked up as well. With the bond's failure, only the UofA get to participate as funded legislatively.
Read the link. Some can get on right away, the others can rent their way in until they get the relatively tiny amount of funds needed to hook up to the line the U of A is going to buy all of right now.
In other words, U of A will buy the whole thing, then lease out pieces until the other guys can buy their piece outright.
No, I would not call it a lie, but it is not very straightforward either.
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