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04/05/2004: Fraud & Conspiracy Fraud & Conspiracy

Water Subsidies Are All Wet
from Capitalism Magazine
referred by alert reader Max Power

Great article about the water "shortage" out west.

Like everything that is made artificially cheap, water is used lavishly, including the growing of crops like cotton that require huge amounts of water. It is one thing to grow cotton in Southern states with abundant rainfall. It is something else to grow it out in a California desert with water supplied largely at the taxpayers' expense.

The long-term contracts under which this ridiculous arrangement goes on expire this year, so theoretically these contracts could be renegotiated so that everyone who uses water supplied by federal water projects has to pay his own way and cover the costs of the operation. Alas, this is an election year, so you can bet the rent money that no such thing is going to happen.

A Department of the Interior spokesman explains it this way: "We don't think it is a good idea for California or the nation to adopt punitive pricing proposals that might have the effect of driving more agriculture out of existence."

Isn't that a lovely thought? Apparently the only people toward whom the government can be "punitive" are the taxpayers.