Way back in November of 2005 (!) I posted a warning about the issues that were going to be caused from basing government spending projections on the windfall in tax revenues spawned by the housing boom.
Completely as an aside, one of my favorite quotes is from Die Hard: “Man, I hate it when I’m right.”
One thing I would like to see lawmakers do in this special session– *now*, when we understand the wisdom of doing so– is to pass a law demanding that windfall tax revenues may *only* be used on things that can improve the city/county/state’s long term economic situation.
I’m talking about investments, retiring bonds, bulk purchases of non-perishables, things of that nature.
Any family would call it “saving for a rainy day”. This shouldn’t be too difficult a concept for our government to understand– especially right now.
Only idiots fail to learn from their mistakes.