Peter Roff
After borrowing nearly half a billion dollars in 2012 – a movevoters approved to allow Gov. Robert Bentley and the legislature shuffle the deck chairs on a sinking ship of state governmentfor a little while longer – things are still not looking up for Alabama. Bentley asked for and got a big tax increase in 2015 and cut money out of Medicaid in 2016. That should have been enough but the demands for new funds keep coming. The political powers in Montgomery would rather undertake new spending than pay what it already owes.
As reputable economists have shown time and again public spending does not stimulate an economy, even when the money is put toward the construction and repair of infrastructure. Investments by the private sector pay the biggest dividends; government can only do so much and only with resources taken out of the private economy that might have been put to better use elsewhere. Somehow that message hasn’t gotten through to the policymakers in the capital and a number of local governments,who are pushing the new and unnecessary projects threatening budgets already stretched so tight they are about to snap. The proposed new road and bridge serving coastal vacation homes in Baldwin County -- where the economy is strong, thanks to robust tourism -- is a perfect example.......To Read More....
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