Reporter Bad at Identifying Spending
One of the difficulties fiscal conservatives face is that many in the media who cover legislation don't even know what spending is. For example, in today's Herald-Leader, Beth Musgrave writes a story about social service legislation. Here's an excerpt:
Still, youth advocates are pushing three key pieces of legislation that call for no additional money — increasing the high school drop-out age to 18, putting caps on the interest rates for payday loans, and decreasing the number of children locked up in state juvenile detention facilities for skipping class or other unruly behavior.
Of the three proposals, the second may be anti-personal responsibility but it doesn't cost the general fund, and the third probably saves money.
But the first, raising the dropout age, requires significantly more spending. Without entering into a discussion about whether it is a good or bad proposal, if the legislature acts in a way that would keep more students in the school system than would otherwise be there, then the state is going to have to spend more for more students. It is not something that calls "for no additional money." In fact, it calls for over $11,500 for every three students that are kept in school who would otherwise have opted out.
Again, I'm not commenting on the worthiness of the proposal, just that something that costs over $100,000 for every 26 students affected shouldn't be reported as having no cost to the budget and the taxpayer.
