Proposition 1C			00.00 10/05
	Opinion
	Submitted as: "Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006"
	Measure 1B is a bond in the amount of $2.85 billion, to be used to pay for housing programs and support infill strategies.
	Bonds are not "free money".  They have a number of negative qualities:
		The money is borrowed, and must be repaid.  This makes the state a debtor, and the debt at some point can become dangerous to the state's credit rating.
		The borrowed money must be repaid with interest; for a 30 year bond at 5%, this about doubles the face value cost of the bond.
		Money to pay interest generally comes from the state General Fund, operating money, dollars that might have been used instead to pay for current projects.
	Consequently, we believe bonds should be used only as a last resort, in cases where the need is urgent and there are no other means of raising the necessary money.  The purposes should be well defined and responsibility for management should be clearly described.
	1C doesn't make it.  If one reviews the table of expenditures that is provided in our Summary for this measure, one sees that almost half of the expenditures, down at the bottom of the table, are going to brand new accounts, to support "infill", the planned hives of high-rise apartment dwellers which are dear to the hearts of "urban designers".  There can't be much urgency to creating these.
	Half of the remainder is going to create ways for those of meager means to buy a house.  This is odd.  Many of us reading this waited a very long time, though not as long as our parents, to scrimp and save to get together enough money to buy our first house.  We never considered that we were somehow being deprived of a right to early ownership, or that having to save involved a crisis of some sort.  There is no right to ownership, certainly not on the government dole, and there is no crisis.
	It's only the rest, about $730 Million, that goes for the construction of actual housing.  That might be a crisis, and certainly the money goes to programs that are already in existence and have a track record.  If the bond were for only these amounts, we might be able to support it.
	But it isn't.  We recommend you Vote NO on 1C.
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