Dear editor:
Ballot Issue 3: Job Creation, etc., is nearly impossible to understand. That is one very good reason to vote No. There are more, but let's try to figure it out.
A bond is a tool to borrow money from investors who bet we will pay them back, plus interest. That bet is based on Arkansas' bet that large industries, enticed to build here by free taxpayer money, will produce enough economic growth to repay the state treasury, so that we, in turn, can repay the bonds.
But bonds are risky. We will have to pay down the bonds regardless of the industry's success. For example, the company may not live up to the agreement, may shirk labor and antipollution laws, or may go bankrupt and leave us with a hulking mass of rust. We must still make good on the bonds.
Ballot Issue 3 would remove the current 5 percent limit on how much of our gross state revenue the Legislature can spend to reduce the cost for large industries to build in Arkansas. The new limit, if voters approve this measure, would be "unlimited."
The money to issue the bonds will come from the gross state revenue: the same pot of taxpayer money that pays for all other government services: transportation, education, health care, judicial system, corrections, law enforcement, child welfare, parks, environmental services, fish and game, legislative and constitutional offices, administration -- all that and more.
The taxpayer money used to pay the bonds must be deducted from other government services in order to maintain a constitutionally required balanced budget. If there is not enough to go around, our taxes will have to increase or the Constitution must be amended to allow Arkansas to go into debt.
How much is 5 percent, the current cap? According to the Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research it was $323,500,987 for FY2016, based on the $6,470,019,753 gross general revenue collections.
The $323 million is a lot of money that could be spent fully funding and staffing our government agencies, keeping the money here in Arkansas to provide the public services for which we thought we were being taxed.
I don't want to give the Legislature a blank check to issue bonds, nor do I want you to authorize the quorum court or city of Hot Springs to do so. That's right, Issue 3 goes all the way down to local governments.
The most common response I get when I talk with legislators and chamber of commerce members about Issue 3 is: "We have to do it to compete. All the other states around us are doing it." When we were teens, that might have been reason enough to jump off a bridge.
We are not teenagers any more. Vote No on Ballot Issue 3.
Denise Marion
Justice of the peace
Garland County District 3
Editorial on 10/26/2016