You probably remember that classic line from “The Princess Bride:” “It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.”
That may come to mind if you read about the push for infrastructure bonds, as Matt Caulder details over at NC Capitol Connection. For the idea of another bond, for highways, is not all dead.
For the original idea behind the bond included highway projects. But the General Assembly voted to stop siphoning off Highway Fund money to instead pay for other projects. That seems to have freed up enough money to pay for highway needs. The current bond focuses on colleges, water and sewer projects, and so forth.
But apparently the notion of an additional bond, to be paid for by North Carolina taxpayers, is still at least slightly alive. As the NC Capitol Connection story says, there is still talk of finding more money for highways. There is talk of finding some way to pay for more roads — including another bond.
Stay tuned. Many voters, as pundits have noted, have no appetite for paying for more government boondoggles. Among other things, many voters probably realize that if government stopped wasting money on bureaucracy, blunders and just plain graft, there’d be enough money available for all the state’s real needs.
BTW, you may hear talk of the bond money being for “schools,” but it’s not to spiff up your local public school, but for colleges. Almost half goes to the UNC System. You can probably judge for yourself whether those campuses are underfunded.
Also in there is money for “agriculture” and “public safety.” It’ll be interesting to find out more details about those items, especially.
With luck, the push to pass this referendum will provoke inquiries into more details of the current bond issue.
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