Droughts are naturally occurring; water shortages are government-created and political. A proposed California ballot measure titled “Water Priorities for All,” would shift bond money earmarked for California’s bullet train and use it instead to build new dams and enlarge existing dams.

The initiative would also amend the State Constitution to include language prioritizing residential and agricultural water use over environmental and recreational claims on river water while leaving water rights untouched.

The ballot measure is under attack by a coalition of seemingly environmental opponents. The Committee to Stop the Special Interest Water Grab, led by David Guy, president of the Northern California Water Association, Tim Johnson, president of the California Rice Commission and a “contract administrator” at California Rice Industry Association, and political operative Steve Maviglio of Forza Communications, a Democratic strategist and big supporter of High Speed Rail and the Twin Tunnels, have launched an all-out assault campaign against the California Water Priorities Initiative.

All communications against “Water Priorities for All” have come… Read More

In my last article, Why Can’t California Farmers Get the Water They Need?, exposed were Gov. Brown’s appointees at the State Water Resources Control Board who ordered the release of massive amounts of water from the New Melones Reservoir and Lake Tulloch, to save a dozen fish, and Gov. Brown who has systematically booted a number of qualified people off of the California Water Commission, the body that decides how to spend $2.7 billion in Prop. 1 Water Bond water storage money.

… Read More

Water wars are historic undertakings in California. Countless other publications have written recently about the proposed ballot measure that would redirect High Speed Rail bond money for water-related projects and prioritize the use of water, But what makes this story interesting is the coalition of opponents, their motivations and techniques being employed.

The Committee to Stop the Special Interest Water Grab, led by David Guy, president of the Northern California Water Association,… Read More

During the most recent year for which there is publicly available data, the fiscal-year-ended 6-30-2012, the California State Teachers Retirement System contributed a $1.1 billion paymenttowards paying off an unfunded liability of $71.0 billion. This fact, and much more, came out in a California Public Policy Center study released last week “Are Annual Contributions Into CalSTRS Adequate?”

Now let’s suppose you have borrowed $71,000, and you are paying a 7.5% interest rate on this borrowed money. Do you think you would ever have this debt paid off, if you only paid $1,100 per year? How would that work? Isn’t 7.5% interest on $71,000 equal to $5,300? Wouldn’t a mere $1,100 payment put you further in the hole by $4,200? Wouldn’t you owe $75,200 by the end of the year, more than the $71,000 debt you started with?

Multiply by a billion and you’ve got CalSTRS.

And this same disastrous, wishful thinking is playing out in nearly every “professionally managed” public sector pension fund in California. Every year, the combined unfunded liability… Read More