It’s becoming a regular theme of Rhode Island government that when the rules don’t produce the outcome that the politically powerful want (even if only not efficiently enough), they change the rules.  Another step in that direction is coming in the name of the “Municipal Road and Bridge Revolving Fund”:

Rhode Island cities and towns would not have to seek voter approval for certain projects financed through the state’s newly created “Municipal Road and Bridge Revolving Fund,” under legislation the state House of Representatives is set to vote on next Tuesday. …

[House spokesman Larry] Berman stressed that the measure, if approved, would only affect projects financed through the road and bridge fund and that cities and towns would be limited to borrowing only up to 5 percent of their most recent budgets before they’d have to seek voter approval.

As always, it’s helpful to rephrase the bill in direct, descriptive terms of what it does: It will allow agents inside town and city governments to commit taxpayers to paying up to 5% of their annual budgets, plus interest, in additional debt.  This just isn’t right, and it shouldn’t be allowed (and it wouldn’t be allowed if Rhode Islanders were paying any attention).

What’s more, legislators know it.  That’s why they’re already planning to amend the bill so that it applies only to loans taken out this fiscal year… for now.  This nod to the notion that town and city governments shouldn’t be allowed to take money out of people’s pockets is insufficient; it would be a minor matter — difficult to catch — when the legislature returns in the future to amend the law to include another year, and then another, and then to take the time limit out entirely.