You Peons Failed to Choose Correctly Last Time...
... so Governor Huckabee and the enligtened liberals who run our state's colleges are going to give you uncouth peasants the opportunity to choose again. This time, with the Establisment drums beating to herd you into line, perhaps you will make the right choice. If not, presumably they will have to ask you all over again.
The subject is a $275 million bond issue for colleges that we narrowly voted down last December. Governor Huckabee has just signed off to put the proposal on the ballot again this November 7th as part of the General Election.
You may recall that the biggest selling point they used last time was that part of the money would be used to hook our campii up to a high-speed internet information highway called an E-corridor. That was the #1 thing they talked about even though it was only a small fraction of the funding they wanted. Well, a week after we voted it down it turned out they had most of the money for the E-corridor anyway! 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 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.
(continued- click WEDNESDAY below and scroll down for rest of article, or if sent straight here just scroll down)
The subject is a $275 million bond issue for colleges that we narrowly voted down last December. Governor Huckabee has just signed off to put the proposal on the ballot again this November 7th as part of the General Election.
You may recall that the biggest selling point they used last time was that part of the money would be used to hook our campii up to a high-speed internet information highway called an E-corridor. That was the #1 thing they talked about even though it was only a small fraction of the funding they wanted. Well, a week after we voted it down it turned out they had most of the money for the E-corridor anyway! 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 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.
(continued- click WEDNESDAY below and scroll down for rest of article, or if sent straight here just scroll down)
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Wednesday, August 09, 2006
5 Comments:
The President of UCA, Lu Hardin, was quoted in today's article along with Huckabee talking about how badly the colleges needed more of your children's money.
You may recall Hardin's name from last week in this article...
http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=168c4045-bf74-4e84-b6f9-9c184cad59c2
....when he announced that UCA would give in-state tuition to illegal aliens (which he referred to as "immigrants") that had managed to evade deportation and remain in Arkansas for six months or more.
When it was pointed out to him that the legislature voted AGAINST a bill to give in-state tuition to illegal aliens less than a year ago, his majesty condescendingly replied, "The failure of this bill does not preclude each university from treating these students as in-state students,” UCA President Lu Hardin said. “This is clearly the right thing to do and is not a difficult decision.”
I have a question, if it is legal for a single state university to unilaterally declare that it is OK to give in-state tution to people who are not legal citizens of the state then why did the legislature feel it had to try and pass a law authorizing it?
And I have other questions as well. Why does his eminence Lu Hardin thumb his nose at the will of the people one week and then come with his hand out asking them to put their children in debt to 2031 the next week? If he needs money so badly, why is he giving illegal alines cut rates on their tution?
He sounds more like a guy who needs his funding CUT rather than someone who is so worthy of extra money that you are expected to vote your children into debt so he can have access to more funds.
That brings me to another point. The plan was structured in an odd way. Supposedly, $100 million or so was going to go to "repayment" of old bonds. The only thing is, those old bonds were COUPON bonds, and there is no practical way to pay those off early. What they wanted to do instead was borrow ANOTHER $100 million, then invest it and use the interest off of that money (along with the principle over time) to pay off the old bonds. That way they could use the money they were now using to pay off the old bonds on current spending.
Tricky? You bet! Inefficient? You bet. There was no gaurantee that the borrowed money could be invested at a rate that would give higher returns than the old bonds had as interest.
The analogy used for this bond deal was refinancing a home mortage- only in this case there was no way to tell in advance if the new bond rate would have been better or worse than the old one. All that was certain is that payments would be extended from ending in 2017 to ending in 2031.
The refinancing of a mortgage was flawed anyway, because they can't pay off the first mortgage early. It would be more like taking out a second mortgage, investing the money in the stock market, and hoping that the gains from the investments were able to pay off both mortgages.
The other part of the bond deal had lists of projects from each institution. Like all such lists, some of them are high-value, top priorities items and others are more along the lines of "this money may be available, here is our share, so let's spend it." We don't need to go into debt from that, but we do need to fund the high-priority items- from current revenues!
The liberals in our education establishment like Lu Hardin are condescending, arrogant, and rapacious. Mike Huckabee must have gone mad at some point, I cannot recognize the man I once supported for office. I ask you to join me in telling them that they will not load debt on our children in order to give them more excess money to play with.
Oh, and did I mention that the bond daddies get well when we keep up one bond issue after another? That is why the politicians who most appreciate the contributions from the Bond Daddies and their friends INSIST that we continue to issue more and more new debt.
I'm fed up with this socialist state. For crying out loud, we're already bottom-of-the-barrel economically speaking! Our unemployment rate is outpacing the rest of the state, and they think the answer is more taxes?!
The rest of the money was for Drugs and Hookers, if I know polititians like I think I do.
Some article that was in the "unbiased" lamestream media. Not one line was given to any opponent of the bond issue, all the space was given to college presidents and such twirping about how wonderful the whole idea is. The losers got all the print to make their case, the side that won got nothing.
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