BANKRUPT

BIG SPENDERS

With $600 Million+ Budget Shortfall and

Record Debt, Leggett Calls for 7%

Capital Spending Increase

This reminds me of the story earlier this year about a Montgomery County resident who was making less than $15,000 and on food stamps. She said she was convinced by a realtor that she could afford a brand new, luxury colonial in Clarksburg. And actually went ahead and bought it. Guess who's picking up the tab now? You, the county taxpayer.

Imagine a man comes home from work, and has just been fired. His wife tells him they have $60,000 in credit card debt, a child about to go to college, and they can't pay the mortgage.

What if his reaction was, "I'm going out to buy a Cadillac!!"

Would you want that man running your county government?

Apparently our elected officials are just like that. What are you going to do about it in November?

You'll have to wait 'til then, though, because Ike Leggett and Nancy Floreen have big plans for your wallet, and big debt for your grandkids to pay off.

"I think we can probably afford this," says Floreen in the Washington Post.

The Post definitely believes her: Reporter Michael Laris says Leggett's is an "upbeat approach," a "boost" for a mighty government with a "vast physical presence." Leggett's fanciful address was heartily received by Laris and a "cheering audience" at Paint Branch HS, whose principal gushed that Leggett's dream will "forever mark him as the 'Education County Executive.'"

I guess running the county budget into the ground, saddling taxpayers with more debt, cutting teacher salaries two years in a row, saying that a state law requiring full funding of education is "stupid," and asking Annapolis for less money for schools is the recipe for anyone to be an "education county executive." Brilliant analysis. Duh.

But let's do the analysis:

Leggett says we are going to spend $4 billion to "save millions." Huh? Maybe my calculator is broken, but I thought a few million was less than even 1 billion, much less 4... This is New Math, possibly?

So let's say we spend that $4 billion. This means, based on the $249 million in debt service this year, an average additional debt service of at least $17 million a year over the next 6 years. Imagine taking that out of education, police, or transit budgets. I'm not even sure that figure is high enough, given we're talking about $4 billion.

I'll take a successful education program, more police officer hires, and more transit and road construction over a building ribbon-cutting any day of the week.

But then, this is the same council that, facing that $600 million plus shortfall, spent $170 million to buy the Webb Tract. So they could then work out a sweetheart land deal near Shady Grove for the developers that got them elected.

It's outrageous.

You won't read this in the Post, or hear it from your elected officials, but we have a structural deficit. Thanks to tax-and-spend government by this 8 year council, we will continue to have budget shortfalls every year for the next several years. This council has failed to create jobs for 8 years, and their late proposal to "turn it around" is the same as the last: more mixed-use development, which - as you know - created no significant jobs. But it sure works for the developers who got them elected, and expect to get them reelected this fall!

No jobs. Cut education, police, fire, transit. Increase debt. Spend billions to save millions.

Like Jerry Weast said, "It's like a no-brainer."