The yokels who populate the Bossier Parish Police Jury got sucked in, and maybe more of Louisiana’s local government will follow their lead in endorsing a deal that’s good for politicians but bad for taxpayers.

Last week, the Jury resolved, unanimously with one juror absent, to urge creation of a national infrastructure bank by Congress. The idea can trace its roots to the controversial Bank of the United States nearly two centuries ago, and the idea has kicked around Congress in earnest since the start of the century.

This institution, following recent legislation and as pitched by its leading interest group backer, would be a creation of Congress with directors appointed by it and $5 trillion to lend. Its capital would involve swapping $500 billion in Treasury debt with the private sector for equity in the bank, the proceeds from then would be loaned to state and local governments at low interest rates. Interest payments would pay off the equity dividends and create a reserve for bad loans, plus administrative expenses. The principal would be loaned again and again.

Republican Jury Pres. Glenn Benton presented the idea, pitched by the interest group for county governments the National Association of Counties. With estimates of needed state and local infrastructure at $2.6 trillion, advocates argue that this allows governments to tackle projects that the bond market and other lenders have shied away from. The Jury with passage planned to have the state association endorse it as well. It passed without commentary from jurors or the audience.

Which demonstrates how out-to-lunch Bossier jurors are on the issue. The first question that should have popped into any of their heads is why such a thing is needed when plenty of entirely government-run programs to accomplish the same thing already exist. Advocates argue these are insufficient and other sources such as the bond market and private banks reject lending for some projects.

Right, but not because there is insufficient capital. It’s because they are bad risks in the first place and borrowers don’t have the means to promise credibly repayment, which is why they get rejected. Many are maintaining thoroughly deficient operations for which only outright grants would work because the underlying government is in such tough financial shape. Worse, as research shows as demonstrated in reviewing such banks internationally and at the state level, there is a persistent positivity bias that creates more optimistic assessment of projects and ability to repay by governments than with similar decisions made by the private sector, leading to a greater default rate that taxpayers (investors as well, in this case) must cover. Indeed, the most crying need for capital is not for new but for maintenance projects with troubled governments, yet the large majority of infrastructure spending is on new things because it gives politicians a chance to cut ribbons.

Worst of all, history shows politics cannot be separated from decisions made by such an institution. Again, the record shows that lending decisions have a heavy dose of political influences, such as giving preference to areas of political support or to areas of intense competition, figuring the loan could tip the scales in favor of the party in power that ultimately appoints the bank directors. And this is amplified because the locus of decision-making is far away from the area where the projects impact, distorting the computation of actual benefits and costs to the local areas. Anyone heard of the California bullet train fiasco?

And, there’s a serious credibility gap when it comes to the notion that no new taxpayer bucks will be involved. A number of similar government corporations have promised whatever startup funds they received would be adequate for the task at hand. Does Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac ring a bell, for example, on the falsity of that assertion?

The best rule of thumb for government borrowing should be lenders closest to the government at hand should authorize it, usually meaning the selling of bonds through a financier with knowledge of that government and its jurisdiction, not a Washington-based institution effectively insulated from market pressures and whose mandarins are political appointees. Republicans particularly grasp that – but apparently not the GOP supermajority on the Bossier Jury, who don’t even seem to realize almost all backers of the idea are Democrat-run governments and leftist to far-left organizations who want to see this because it means bigger government and more redistribution of resources not through markets which they disdain, but according to politics they can control.

If the Jury is so hot for the idea, what it should do is petition the state to activate the Louisiana State Transportation Infrastructure Bank, stuffed into statute and the Constitution a decade ago. It’s moribund, because the state (wisely) never has directed money to it, but if such an institution actually must operate for Louisiana local governments, better it be closer to the government-clients. And, of course, the state has its own potpourri of programs to fund local infrastructure initiatives, although these typically are pass-throughs from the federal government that eventually expire.

But, likely none of these drawbacks penetrated the space between Bossier jurors’ ears because all their brains were wired to was the thought of More Money! Local politicians love a program like this because it increases their abilities to get tangible stuff built subsidized by other people outside their district that they can show off to their constituents and take credit for it all, which helps their reelection chances.

It’s a shame that the Bossier Jury so viscerally and casually ratified this dreck. These jurors deserve our opprobrium not so much for making a bad choice, but because they did it apparently so thoughtlessly. Quietly abandoning its lobbying on behalf of this half-baked issue preference would be the way to maximize face-saving potential without further embarrassment triggered by drawing attention to their mistake. And sensible juries and commissions across the state should take heed not to replicate it.