Borrowing

Daniel Sullivan

Surry ME

It is not even one month into our two year balanced budget and our government leaders want to borrow money to pay our bills. We did have a rainy day fund to cover our shortfalls, but I guess when you use it to balance a budget, it is no longer a rainy day fund!  If we are borrowing in the first month, what is going to happen for the next seventeen months?  I say seventeen because we always have a supplemental budget to pay for shortfalls in our balanced two year budget; usually in DHHS and usually for 10-20 million dollars.  I know when I borrow money,  I have to pay interest on what I borrow. This would increase the shortfall between what my income was and what I had to pay.  I guess this rule applies everywhere except to governments. The fact that the state already has to come back in to session to make another 50 million dollars in cuts in the budget is extremely disturbing.  We are spending more than we have coming in, and our budget shortfalls are getting larger every cycle.  How much longer can we go, when we are having shut down days and forcing state employees to take days off without pay?  Aren't they entitled to a living wage?  Our state wants to use California as an example in gasoline and clean air standards.  I guess we are using California's budget model also.

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