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California waterloo – Tide of debt may shift from General Fund to water users

Posted by: Maven on October 6, 2009 at 7:03 am

From IndyBay.org, this commentary by Patrick Porgans, Solutionist, of Porgans & Associates, Inc.:

“On October 1, State Treasurer Bill Lockyer released the 2009 Debt Affordability Report. The report finds that, “further increasing the General Fund’s debt burden, especially in the next three difficult budgets, would require cutting even deeper into crucial services already reeling from billions of dollars in reductions.” The Treasurer therefore found that water infrastructure should be paid for by users, not the General Fund.

Have “we the people” been laboring under a misapprehension or can it be that someone in political office has finally come to his senses. For almost a decade Porgans & Associates (P&A) have voiced concerns about the rising General Fund debt being incurred by Californians to bailout State Water Project (SWP) and other water users. P&A diligently reminded Californians and the “leadership” of the fact that the SWP was sold on the premise that it would pay-for-itself; the beneficiaries, water and power users would pay.

Furthermore, the SWP was also promoted on the premise it would unify the State. The record shows it has done neither. Conversely, the SWP is at the core of the Delta Collapse and the State’s never-ending water wars.

Treasurer Bill Lockyer’s recent epiphany that water infrastructure should be paid by users is a far-flung cry from his support and position on General Fund/General Obligation Bond funding for water users when he was Senate Pro Tem, back in the 1990s. It was at that time, Proposition 204, the first of a series of General Obligation Bonds, ultimately totaling more than $18 billion were launched. Repayment of GO Bonds comes out of the General Fund. …”

Read more from IndyBay.org by clicking here.

October 6, 2009 · Filed Under Infrastructure

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