Spend it if you got it

Here it is Easter Sunday and what am I doing? Writing and thinking about politics and the CPA. But then if we don't do it who will?


What happens when we continue to spend without having any extra income? Whether it is the federal government (not that they ever spend needlessly) the state or the city or town we live in, eventually we will have to borrow money from somewhere. Now, I am not a financial whiz but the interest rates we are charged are based on our credit ratings. The lower our credit rating (basically the same as our own personal credit score) the higher interest we will be charged.

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The more interest we are charged, the more the "free money" (there's that term again) will cost us to pay back. Here in Sturbridge I am under the assumption that right now we have a pretty good credit rating. But as we continue to spend more than we take in, which as pointed out previously we are doing right now, our credit rating will go down and therefore it will cost us more to borrow. This will increase the actual cost (now some may nitpick if this isn't the correct term) of a project will go up. Sure the lumber and nails may be the same, but the cost of money to pay for those nail will be more.

Here is an article which appeared in Yahoo News talking about the credit rating for the United States being lowered. This could happen to us in Sturbridge as well.

Some other interesting information has come to light as well, which I will write more later, but for now it has been learned that there is a quite a difference in where the money which is collected from the fees which pay for the CPA and where it actually goes. For example, towns in Worcester County who signed on to the CPA, have received between $18 to $22 million less from the fund than they have put in, through the fees collected. Middlesex County on the other hand received $30 million more than they collected from these fees.

So I guess their free money is coming from the rest of us.