Budget Impasse Is Over—Bring Out the Credit Cards

The state budget shutdown is over. Now all we have to deal with is the trickle-down problems it is going to cause.

And school districts are first on the list.

It is a little bit difficult to understand the education bill that passed. The legislators are bragging about a $50 per pupil increase. But at the same time they are borrowing $2 billion via education funding shifts... past and present.

How can you have an increase in funding and then borrow from it at the same time? Does that make any sense to anybody? This "living within our means" must obviously involve a hefty credit card usage. And to make matters worse, I'm not sure what's backing up the credit card.

will get hit for $20 million via that shift this year. And it sounds like they will have to borrow funds to cover that shortfall. More credit cards? It's like the guy who gets all of these credit card offers in the mail, so he racks up bills on one and pays it off with a different card... and then pays that one off with still another... hoping that somewhere down the road he might latch onto a lottery win or something.

This isn't any way to run a state.  And they have the gall to say they are being "fiscally conservative."

In what world might that be?