The State of Oregon had its credit rating upgraded by Standard & Poor's today. It's now at AA+ -- just one notch below the top -- compared to AA, two notches below, previously.

This is good news -- it beats a downgrade -- but only mildly good. It means that as the state goes further into hock, the interest rates it pays will be a little lower. But as Treasurer Ted Wheeler's smiley-face press release indirectly acknowledges, there's a whole lot of new interest about to be paid: "The higher rating from Standard & Poor’s comes as Oregon is preparing to sell a number on bonds that were authorized by the 2009 Legislature, totaling more than $1 billion."

Getting an excellent credit score is nice, but that doesn't mean you should be clicking your heels as you sign away your life in IOUs.

Nor is a high bond rating much assurance that things won't go sour. Before the big crash of '08, outfits like S&P, who are paid for their work by the very borrowers they rate, had nothing but good grades to hand out to all sorts of securities that turned out to be junk. Don't believe everything that Wall Street tells you about the paper that it's trying to sell you.

The real irony of the day, though, is how quick the bureaucrats can tally up all the interest savings over the life of a long-term debt, and present the public with the full total in a lump sum. For example, Wheeler's press release says, "The estimated saving due to the S&P credit rating increase is $4.3 million for every $100 million in debt over the length of the bonds."

Try to get the politicians to give you that number -- interest over the length of the bonds -- when they're borrowing money for streetcars, aerial trams, soccer stadiums, and other frills. The interest on the crushing debt that they rack up for their pet projects is never mentioned in any budget for the project, ever. But when they knock a little off the interest rates, boy, are they quick with the calculator.