Last-moment bond won't fix water issue

[unhappycamper]

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/aug/13/Republicans-secure-more-dam-building-water-bond/



FILE - This May 1, 2014, file photo shows irrigation water runs along a dried-up ditch between rice farms in Richvale, Calif. In Santa Cruz, Calif., dozens of residents who violated their strict water rations take a seat at Water School, hoping to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in distressing penalties waived. California is in the third year of the state's worst drought in recent history.

Last-moment bond won't fix water issue
By Steven Greenhut6:52 p.m.Aug. 13, 2014

SACRAMENTO — “You know why there are so many whitefish in the Yellowstone River?” asked Montana-based landscape artist Russell Chatham, in his 1978 book. “Because the Fish and Game people have never done anything to help them.” I keep that quotation in mind whenever the government promises to solve a problem, especially a big one that promises to tame nature.

The very act of legislative sausage making — that age-old cliché about the ugly nature of lawmaking — assures that deals to please special interests and appease people with differing political philosophies and constituencies drives the final result. Ongoing efforts to craft a drought-related water bond fits that pattern to a tee.

California’s unusually severe drought has been obvious for more than a year, but only now have officials decided to really deal with it with a revised bond. They waited until the last moment — just as the secretary of state was at her deadline for printing November general-election ballots.

In 2009, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature hammered out a controversial $11.14 billion water bond that was jammed through at the end of session and laden with every manner of pork-barrel project to win support of enough legislators.

[Nihil]

1. Yeah, 'cos signatures on pieces of paper will always solve stupidity ...

> irrigation water runs along a dried-up ditch between rice farms in Richvale, Calif.

Rice farms. In a state that suffers from periodic drought.

Still being irrigated two months ago - i.e., after a long period of "unusually severe drought".

Pieces of paper are expected to fix this level of selfish idiocy?