I’m sick of hearing the DFL say that we can’t mortgage our children’s future by bonding for building roads & repairing bridges. My adopted state representative Steve Gottwalt chided the House DFL for that here. Now we find out that Keith Langseth plans on mortgaging our children’s futures to build “hockey arenas and other projects”:

Pawlenty pledges to veto hockey arenas and other projects that he considers lower priority. Langseth wants those arenas, such as ones in Bemidji and Crookston. An arena addition to the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center appears to be on everyone’s list to pass.

It’s time that Minnesota taxpayers ask why the legislature is willing to bond for arenas but not for roads. Considering the fact that we’ve got a budget deficit, shouldn’t we expect legislators to scrutinze items in the bonding bill even more than when we have a big surplus? Shouldn’t we want the bonding bill to be used to make Minnesota more prosperous longterm rather than using it as the politicians’ re-election slush fund. This leads to a bigger, more overarching question:

Shouldn’t we ask what our state’s priorities are? Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to ask legislators to only bond for things that make Minnesota more prosperous, more safe or more inviting to entrepreneurial activity? I’d submit that bonding bills that create temporary bursts of employment should at least go for things that make improve Minnesota’s educational & transportation infrastructure.

At minimum, shouldn’t we expect the wants list to be talked about in terms of wants, not needs? We should expect legislators to stop talking like the sky will fall if their projects don’t get built.

Most of the things in the bill are nothing more than monuments to politicians’ re-election campaigns. The entire reason why the DFL pushed the Transit Bill through so fast was so they could say that they were funding roads & bridges with that bill, thereby allowing them to add more pork to the actual bonding bill.

It’s guaranteed that the bonding bill won’t be a penny less if we bond for roads & bridges or if we bond for arenas & civic centers. Taking that into consideration, shouldn’t the bonding bill be used on the highest priority items?

Then again, prioritize is a four letter word in the DFL’s dictionary. I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to start prioritizing now.

Here’s something else worth worrying about:

After Thursday’s prediction of a deepening budget deficit and Monday’s passage of a transportation funding bill that includes bonding money, Gov. Tim Pawlenty insisted that no more than $825 million be borrowed. But the senator in charge of that chamber’s public works plans, Sen. Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, said he plans to stick with the previously agreed-to figure of $965 million. The House will come up with its number Monday.

The reason why this information is important is because of bond ratings. There was a time when Minnesota’s bond rating dipped dramatically. After consultation with bond ratings organizations, they agreed that they’d never bond for more than 3 percent of the state’s revenues for that biennium, thereby ensuring that Minnesota’s bond rating would always be the highest possible.

When Sen. Langseth says that they’ll ignore the $825 million number & would push for the $965 million mark, what he’s quietly saying is that he’s comfortable deciding to let Minnesota’s bond rating jump for the sake of a short term burst in public works projects.

What this means is that the DFL is defying responsible limits on the bonding bill, thereby saddling ‘the children’ with even higher debt service than they accuse the GOP of saddling the next generation with.

Technorati: , Bonding Bill, Pork, Hockey Arenas, Civic Centers, Infrastructure, Transportation, Keith Langseth, Election 2008