What would you do with $3 million? Let’s back up and ask, where you would get $3 million.
That is not a problem for the Macon County Commissioners. The answer to the first question is to build a new park. The answer to the second was not so easy. Some wanted to deplete the county’s fund balance, which is already four times what the state requires. In the end, the majority of commissioners voted to spend $1 million in funds hard-earned with high tax rates. $500,000 in free money was donated from the poor, impoverished, teacher-starving state’s magic money tree. The remainder would be financed in order to protect the county’s credit rating. (Don’t mock. Interest payments might, just might, be right to destroy the credit rating of some little taxpayer somewhere. Heh, heh, heh.) Commissioner Paul Higdon and Chair Kevin Corbin voted against the uncreative strategy for pushing borderline middle-class families into poverty.
Per Victor Drummond: The entry titled “Free Money Economics” has an error. The two Macon County commissioners voting against spending the $3 million on the park were Paul Higdon and Ron Haven.
Kevin Corbin, the commission chairman, voted FOR funding. In fact his original proposal was to fund the entire $3 million out of the General Fund balance since it was taxpayer money just sitting there waiting to be spent, and it wasn’t earning any interest just sitting there!