CA: Opposing views - PROP. 84: Promoting water interests at taxpayers' expense

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | October 27, 2006 | Lewis K. Uhler

[calcowgirl]

Proposition 84 is as misleading in its title as its drafters are shameless in their self-interest and self-dealing: "The Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006." A careful reading of the fine print of the initiative reveals that there is no assurance that one dime will be spent on actual flood control (levee construction or repair), and that there are no funds for increasing water supply through dams, reservoirs or other storage.

Why, then, you may ask, would the drafters of Proposition 84 label this $5.4 billion bond a "clean water and flood control measure?" Because it sells! Over the last decade, the California environmental "industry" has succeeded in passing five bond measures, worth $13 billion to them, using "clean water" as the bait. Why fight success?

Proposition 84 was drafted by a Sacramento lobbyist -- Joe Caves -- whose clients include many environmental organizations that stand to profit from passage of this measure and several of which have made huge contributions to its qualification and passage, namely:

The Nature Conservancy (more than $3 million),

National Audubon Society (more than $150,000),

The Peninsula Open Space Trust, and many more.

As Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters noted in his Oct. 15 column, "Pay-to-play still lives on the ballot." The Planning and Conservation League in the early '90s perfected the technique of writing bond or tax initiatives to benefit those who would put up the money to qualify the measures. While it is illegal for a legislator to take money in exchange for special legislation, environmentalists have found that using the initiative process in that fashion has been very profitable.

Proposition 84 is a new tax, contrary to its sponsors' claims, . . .

[calcowgirl]

Lewis K. Uhler is the founder and president of the National Tax Limitation Committee, a grassroots taxpayer lobby. It has offices in Roseville (Placer County) and Washington, D.C

Visit his organization's website to view examples of other contributors and beneficiaries: www.limittaxes.org

[EagleUSA]

Something is wrong herre -- the SF Chron stumping AGAINST increased taxation??? There must be a mistake.

Our ballot measures in California are all about more taxation, more government spending. In a state that is so over-taxed NOW and spending is totally out of control, the tax-and-spend liberals are trying to put the state MORE IN DEBT and spend more money they do not have by taking our wealth to do so.

My vote takes them all down. No more spending. No more debt. No more nothing, until this leftist socialist state government can get its spending under control.

I am not holding my breath.

[calcowgirl]

Check the author--it wasn't the Chron but Lewis K. Uhler, founder and president of the National Tax Limitation Committee.

Now, the fact that they actually published it is a mystery! lol