How Joe Straus' Water Slush Fund will kneecap Texans

A must read piece from Empower Texans:

The state’s demand for water is undoubtedly growing.  The question is not if we need water.  It’s a debate regarding the most prudent method by which to fund the State’s Water Plan.

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[L]egislators are asking voters on November 5^th to approve a constitutional amendment that would take $2billion from the Economic Stabilization Fund (aka the “rainy day” fund), and use it to supplement the financing of water projects.


The funds will back borrowing to assist local governments, already saddled with record debt, in issuing even more.  Some estimate the fund could support as much as $30 billion or more of new projects over the next fifty years, an amount that approaches the State’s total indebtedness to date (which has more than doubled over the last decade).

Texas currently has the second-highest per person, local debt in the nation. As of 2011, taxpayers were $233 billion in the hole, with 83% held locally by cities, schools and water districts.

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Thanks to Republican spendoholics like Charlie Geren (HD-99) in north Texas, districts charged with supplying water like the Tarrant Regional Water District, have been authorized to waste millions of your dollars on economic development slush funds. The TRVA, a subsidiary of TRWD, recently approved plans to build an outdoor ice rink! So much for water…

It begs a very important question: Why would we encourage more state and local borrowing when water districts are allowed to spend millions on projects not related to water production?

 A very important question indeed; read the whole thing here.

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Note: Early voting begins October 21st and runs for two weeks.  Election day proper is November 5.  Vote AGAINST Prop 6.