There’s a whole lot of politickin’ going on these days and one of the targets is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, or the “stimulus.”
One of the points we made at the Iowa Fiscal Partnership during and after the adoption of the Recovery Act was its use as a “bridge” for state services. As we note on our IFP website, “economic stimulus measures need to be targeted, timely and temporary, to act as a bridge across the economic and fiscal valley of a recession.”
Recall that some in the Legislature, and some folks during the 2010 campaign season, complained that such use of “one-time funds” was a bad idea for ongoing services — that it would create a “cliff” in funding that, once exhausted, would leave the state on the hook for new responsibilities it might not be able to afford.
Late last week, the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency shed new light on this discussion with a simple bar graph on the front page of one of its “Issue Review” reports, this one about Iowa state appropriations over time.
Note the green portion of the bars, representing where ARRA funds filled in for lower state revenues caused by the Great Recession. No cliff emerged following the use of ARRA funds as state revenues (the red portions of the bars) rose. But note from FY2009 to FY2010 how state resources might have fallen without the ARRA funds. That potential cliff would have threatened state funding of education and health services that Iowans depend upon.
Clearly, the folks promoting one-time-fund orthodoxy were wrong, and the “bridge” analogy was spot-on.
The stimulus successfully bridged the gap in revenues to stop the critical loss of state services, and maintain the benefit of those services to the state’s economy.
Posted by Mike Owen, Assistant Director
