Texas Water Boondoggle would legalize Book Cooking

Another must read piece from Agendawise on the water boondoggle:

[T]he constitutional amendment is designed to keep $2 billion of water funding from counting against the spending cap.

During the 83rd Legislature legislators would not treat as a real priority, by addressing it out of general revenue, the so-called “water crisis”.

Instead, legislators created a replenishing $2 billion water bank that busts the spending cap. They weren’t willing to either spend the money or pass a legalized cooking of the books themselves. Like a hot potato, they passed it on to us.

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This is more boondoggle than crisis.

This amendment is set up so that the money will only be spent if the cooking the books is legalized. They don’t want to be seen busting the spending cap. That’s how much of a real “crisis” this water crisis is.

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What’s driving this?

The Texas ruling class wants badly to raise taxes. Under Straus’s watch, every time tax hikes become a conversation, gambling expansion is put up as an alternative, even though the idea that gambling is a net revenue enhancer is going the way of the dodo bird.

Since Texans so strongly demand fiscal responsibility, two things are needed by the ruling class to sanitize talk about a new tax: create a crisis and deplete the Rainy Day Fund so that taxes are the only crisis-fixer.

 Read the whole thing here.