This story is now superceded by this one. The comptroller disputes the figures below.

As promised, here is the story that examines the funding mechanism for Comptroller Dan Hynes’ stem cell research proposal. From One Man’s blog:

Ok, lets run some numbers. $1 billion in new debt financed by taxes on facelifts. So assuming the bonds will be 20 year notes you are looking at an interest rate of at least 5.11% so 5.11% of 1 billion the interest alone is $51,100,000.00 a year, so how much cosmetic surgery do you need to tax at 6% to get $51,100,000 , you need about $850,000,000 in ‘cosmetic surgery’ to tax just to cover the interest.

To give you an idea what sort of volume that financial nut will require the whole ’schebang’ (follow the link for other costs) for a liposuction is about $5,000. So to cover it with just liposuction 170,000 thousand people would have to get the procedure yearly.

In 2003 Americans spent about $9.4 Billion (from a report from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery) on these procedures. So lets assume that in 2004 it will be $10 Billion so 8.5% of all cosmetic procedures will need to take place in Illinois to meet his number. Illinois has about 5% of the US population.

Keep in mind you haven’t paid a dollar of principal that would be about another 50 Million a year that would require about 1.7 Billion a year in cosmetic surgery. Or about 20% of all money spent in the US on cosmetic surgery.

As I said in Capitol Fax, I think the real point here is that Hynes has used the issue to make it clear that he’s still a contender in 2006 and won’t fade away, as some had speculated.