{"id":17242,"date":"2013-02-19T12:31:54","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T17:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=17242"},"modified":"2013-02-19T12:31:54","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T17:31:54","slug":"more-local-govt-corruption-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/17242\/more-local-govt-corruption-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"More Local Govt. Corruption in California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An investigative report from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/articles\/bonds-496091-school-bank.html\" target=\"_blank\">Orange County Register<\/a> deserves to be read in its entirety, but here\u2019s my executive summary.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of schools in California enlisted the services of a bank to underwrite school construction bonds, known on Wall Street as \u201ccapital appreciation\u201d bonds.\u00a0 The key attraction: no payments on principal or interest for <em>35 years<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, that kind of delay isn\u2019t free.\u00a0 One school district in Orange County is estimated to owe $13 for every $1 borrowed when the bills come due.\u00a0 This means that for one $22 million bond issue in 2011, the Placentia-Yorba Linda school district will eventually owe $280 million \u2013 13 times the original amount.<\/p>\n<p>It gets worse.\u00a0 In 2008, thanks to arguably illegal politicking by the bank underwriter, district voters approved up to $200 million in bond issuances.\u00a0 But while not all of the total are capital appreciation bonds, those that are could very well bankrupt the district for a generation or more.<\/p>\n<p>The failures on display here are all too familiar.\u00a0 Public officials opting to mortgage the future to look like a hero in the present saddle taxpayers with huge financial burdens.\u00a0 Financial whizzes with no ethical scruples abuse the system for big profits.\u00a0 And money wasted on concrete eye-candy \u2013 a football stadium and 600 seat performing arts center \u2013 while funding for classroom instruction gets reduced.<\/p>\n<p>While there is no silver lining to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/articles\/bonds-496091-school-bank.html\" target=\"_blank\">Register piece<\/a>, it\u2019s worth reading as a reminder of how much American government at all levels needs a deep renewal of ethics, thrift, and a commitment to the common good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An investigative report from the Orange County Register deserves to be read in its entirety, but here\u2019s my executive summary. Hundreds of schools in California enlisted the services of a bank to underwrite school construction bonds, known on Wall Street as \u201ccapital appreciation\u201d bonds.\u00a0 The key attraction: no payments on principal or interest for 35 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[299,351,81,949,1983,4043,1447,3310,105,459],"class_list":["post-17242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-california","tag-corruption","tag-debt","tag-ethics","tag-finance","tag-orange-county","tag-reform","tag-school","tag-tax","tag-wall-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17242"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17246,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17242\/revisions\/17246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}