Smith: ‘Building highways with a credit card’
Rep. Leon Smith, R-Twin Falls, who sits next to Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, told the House, "I love my seatmate, but he's misguided." Smith, speaking against the GARVEE bonding bill, asked the House, "Should we be doing this huge GARVEE program, building highways with a credit card to the extent that we're doing? ... There are only three states in the union that have a higher debt" for GARVEE bonds, a special type of bond which allow states to borrow against their future federal highway allocations. They are Georgia, Colorado and Ohio, Smith said, states much larger than Idaho. "We are the highest leveraged." Smith said, "We have become a borrowing state... We are asking our fellow Idahoans to tighten their belts, and yet we're going to jump into the pool on an $82 million borrowing program.
