How is this different from getting a loan on tobacco money?

By David Safier

I'm honestly confused. I hope someone can explain this to me.

Our Accidental Gov is talking about a plan to raise some money to lessen the budget cuts in 2010. She wants to sell some state buildings.

If it were a straight sale, at least I'd understand it. Then the question would be, is it smart to sell the buildings?

But her plan sounds like the state would, in a sense, be taking a loan, using the state buildings as collateral.

Brewer provided no specifics to her audience at the Glendale Civic Center. But Senseman said the main thing the governor has in mind essentially amounts to mortgaging state buildings, selling them to private investors and then leasing them back over some fixed period until they are once again owned by the state.

This sounds like me taking a loan against the equity of my home. I pay it back month by month, until I pay it off, then the house is mine, free and clear.

So my question is, why not just take a loan based on future tobacco revenues as Napolitano suggested? It seems to me the tobacco money is actually better collateral since, unlike a piece of property, it won't change in value.

So what am I missing? Is it that the people who she would "sell" the buildings to are people who she would like to see make money, rather than other people who would float loans based on future tobacco money?

Help me out, somebody.