Count the heavy strings tied to federal stimulus money

Should Arizona accept the federal stimulus money? To many, it’s a no-brainer. With Arizona facing a budget shortfall next year of more than $3 billion, the money floating down from above seems a blessed relief.

Solis: Haggling over stimulus? It’s absurd.

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, speaks for members of the spending lobby who urge that we not only accept the funds, but that we also lobby aggressively for the greatest funding possible and that we change our laws and programs as necessary to maximize our take. After all, she reasons, if we don’t, other states will get our share of the dollars we send to Washington.

But that’s where the problems with the federal largesse start. The dollars we hope to receive were never sent to Washington by anyone. They and all the other dollars in the unbelievable spending binge from President Barack Obama were simply created by writing an IOU against the future, to be repaid … well, nobody knows how. You can be sure it won’t be pretty and the consequences, which may come sooner than you think, could make our present difficulties seem like trifles.

Moreover, the whole scheme is unconstitutional. Subsidies to the states aren’t included in the enumerated powers, a list of authorizations in the U.S, Constitution intended to restrain the powers of the central government. The framers likely would have prohibited them, but the idea was so absurd it didn’t seem necessary. By ignoring the founders’ wisdom, we’re turning the states into mere administrative subdivisions of the federal government.

Trifles like constitutionally limited government and providing decent economic prospects for future generations may seem like arcane matters of principle. We need the money so badly! But there are other, more practical reasons to look before we leap.

The poison pill is that in order to qualify for the funding, Arizona must expand its own spending on social welfare programs. Money must be added back to programs for free child care, unemployment benefits must be raised and eligibility relaxed, medical spending must be increased without requiring premium sharing even with those recipients who could afford it. The list goes on, but for a state coming off a five-year spending binge, that’s exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.

The “stimulus” bill is so perversely written it’s difficult to imagine what the authors had in mind. This was the legislation so urgently needed that Obama’s pants were going to be on fire if it didn’t pass in 24 hours. Not a single legislator read or comprehended it before it was approved.

Yet it wasn’t even a serious attempt to stimulate the economy, by any reckoning. If legislators had taken time to read the bill, they would have discovered that the stated intent to help states with their budget deficits wasn’t sincere either. Not only are the strapped states forced to spend more, more than $1.5 billion of the $4 billion Arizona eventually hopes to receive goes to appropriations outside the General Fund, thus providing no budgetary relief.

So the stimulus bill puts Arizona officials on the horns of a dilemma. Do they mortgage the future to get the cash? You might think our leaders would be sensitized to the dangers of using one-time revenues to finance permanent growth in government, since that’s how we got in this pickle originally.

But the money is tempting, as it was meant to be. As Dean Mittelstaedt of Arizona State University’s school of business told the Arizona Capitol Times, it’s like telling a drug addict “we’re going to help you by giving you a (small amount of) drugs. All it’s doing is supporting the same habits that got us into this.”

He’s right. If Arizona accepts the money, in two years we’ll be worse off than we are today. Our government spending obligations will be greater than ever and the money to pay for them will be gone.

Going cold turkey would be smart and the right thing to do. But the political pressure to take the boodle is overwhelming. Let’s hope for enough leadership to at least do some prudent picking and choosing. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.

East Valley resident Tom Patterson (pattersontomc@cox.net) is a retired emergency room physician and former state senator.