Blagojevich is seeking to sell bonds at historically low interest rates to free up funds to close the budget shortfall. All sorts of states and localities are playing with these sort of mechanisms and I’m leery of some of them. However, in this case, it shouldn’t hurt the state anymore than refinancing a house does and the state should pursue the plan.

Steve Brown is the policy guy for the Speaker and takes care of most of these decisions. He is very good at keeping his guy out of trouble, so my reading is that if he ultimately signs off, it will have to be a sound plan.