Golden Sleaze Awards - The Eating Your Corn Seed Award

Gov. Sonny Perdue

Itching for ways to balance the state’s budget without raising taxes, the lame-duck gubner proposed selling off a chunk of a state loan fund, a move met with applause by free-market policy wonks who hilariously called it a “stimulus program for bond lawyers.” The fund had traditionally been used to help cities and counties that lacked the finances to secure private credit to obtain low-interest loans for infrastructure projects. (The program helped attract auto builder Kia to West Point and finance Atlanta’s $4 billion sewer overhaul.) Under Perdue’s plan, the fund, which took more than 20 years to build up, will most likely be sold to investors – most likely on impoverished Wall Street – for 50 cents on the dollar. In other words, Perdue made the very unbusiness-like mistake of selling off an asset in a time of crisis. According to one astounded political observer, the move “will have implications for decades to come.”