Lower Allen Web Log

With the general election fast approaching, attention has begun to turn to the ballot initiative which will ask voters if they want to commit the Commonwealth to $400 million of indebtedness to finance grants and loans for infrastructure projects including water, sewer and storm water management.

Tell your friends, neighbors and co-workers to vote YES on the initiative.

But why, you may ask, why should we go deeper in debt?

The short answer is that, if the referendum does not pass now, the projects the grants and loans would have funded will instead be funded by individual municipalities. If that happens, the price tag for borrowing the money will be considerably higher than if Pennsylvania state government borrows it, and it will all be borne only by the taxpayers affected.

While that might make sense to some folks, please consider what's about to become painfully obvious to many Pennsylvanians: due to federal and state mandates, local governments and authorities are about to undertake hundreds of millions of dollars worth of infrastructure improvements. The projects will initially be centered in the Susquehanna River Basin, and will quickly spread to the Delaware and Ohio River basins.

Okay, so that much makes sense. So why wouldn't a person vote to help fund these infrastructure mandates?

Here's the language you'll see on the ballot Nov. 4:

“Do you favor the incurring of indebtedness by the Commonwealth of $400,000,000 for grants and loans to municipalities and public utilities for the cost of all labor, materials, necessary operational machinery and equipment, lands, property, rights and easements, plans and specifications, surveys, estimates of costs and revenues, prefeasibility studies, engineering and legal services and all other expenses necessary or incident to the acquisition, construction, improvement, expansion, extension, repair or rehabilitation of all or part of drinking water system, storm water, nonpoint source projects, nutrient credits and wastewater treatment projects?”

There's enough weasel words in there to scare Perry Mason.

The facts far outweigh the fear on this one.

Vote YES on Nov. 4. Your wallet/purse will thank you in the end.