Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Comptroller’s office disuptes analysis

Posted in:

Illinois

Comptroller Dan Hynes’ spokesman, Alan Henry, called a few minutes ago to talk about OneMan’s analysis of Hynes’ plastic surgery tax proposal to fund stem cell research which I linked to earlier.

First, Henry said, this is not a simple billion-dollar loan. The 25-year bonds will be issued in $100 million increments per year over a ten-year period.

In the first year, the 6 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery would raise $15 million, based on $250 million in procedures.

Hynes estimates a 20 percent growth in revenues per year. Medical inflation for the past ten years and increased usage for the past five years were used “very conservatively” to come up with that number, Henry said.

The expected interest rate would be 6.5 percent (higher than OneMan’s estimate of 5.11 percent). The “peak debt service” (the highest point of the payout) would be in 2017, and the payout amount that year would be $93 million.

According to Henry, there will be “more revenues than debt service in the early years.” The excess early money would be put in a fund and then used to make higher payments down the road. “It’s self-funded from beginning to end,” Henry insisted.

Henry was calling from his cellphone, but will be e-mailing me a spreadsheet when he gets back to his office. I’ll post it here.

UPDATE: The person responsible for putting together the package is not at work today, but here’s some more info (xls download).

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Nov 24, 04 @ 11:25 am

Comments

No comments on this post so far.