Take New York's ballot proposition #1 -- thank God, the only statewide ballot issue this year. It sounds very useful on the surface: "CLEAN WATER, CLEAN AIR, AND GREEN JOBS Environmental Bond Act of 2022". Well, yay! Even evil Republicans like clean water and clean air. And we know that, due to the various raids on the state treasury over the years, there never seems to be enough dough to fix the ancient water systems that feed clean water to populated areas. I have a friend who works in the sewers in New York City -- we'll call him Norton. Norton says they still occasionally dig up wooden pipes that were laid down in starting in the early 1800s. (You can see some of the sort here.) His crew dries them out and slices them, mounts the slices on plaque boards, and awards them to guys who are retiring. So even in death those old pipes serve a useful purpose, unlike most live politicians.
So sure, let's borrow some dough to get that clean water and -- clean air? What's that for, giant dehumidifiers with dust filters? There are only two ways government can clean the air: regulate factories out of existence, as has been done in New York State*, and replace coal power plants with nukes, and New York State is shutting down nuclear plants. So, what is this ballot proposal supposed to fund? And what's this "green jobs" stuff? And what's it all supposed to cost?
"To address and combat the impact of climate change and damage to the environment..." it starts, and here we go.
The purpose of this proposal is to authorize the creation of state debt and the sale of state bonds in the amount of up to four billion two hundred million dollars ($4,200,000,000) for certain capital projects for the purpose of making environmental improvements that preserve, enhance, and restore New York's natural resources and reduce the impact of climate change....
I remember when $4.2 billion was a lot of money.
How do they plan to blow spend the money?
restoration and flood risk reduction not less than one billion one hundred million dollars ($1,100,000,000); open space land conservation and recreation up to six hundred fifty million dollars ($650,000,000); climate change mitigation up to one billion five hundred million dollars ($1,500,000,000); and, water quality improvement and resilient infrastructure not less than six hundred fifty million dollars ($650,000,000).
How much for herding unicorns to get their magical farts to run turbines? Because there will be mandates to kill fossil fuel power generation, which is working so brilliantly in Europe. Why is "climate change mitigation" the #1 most expensive item? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I love how they slip "jobs" into the name of the bill, to get people to think "I might find work from this!" rather than "The government is taking my money to pay some other slob to show up!" Does no one recall how Obama's "shovel-ready jobs" boondoggle went down? There was something to shovel, all right, but it had nothing to do with infrastructure.
Not one voter in a hundred will read the text of this ballot proposal beyond the title, so how do you think they will vote? I've seen signs around town promoting this ballot initiative, no doubt by the grifters who stand to make a fortune from it. I have not seen one sign saying "This will cost more than five billion bucks (including interest) for less than $100 million of value," which would be more accurate. No one will even know about it until election day, except for pests like me. So there goes a few more billion down the old wooden wastepipes.** We get broker and our energy supply gets more expensive and less reliable. The fat pigs at the trough get fatter. Sounds great.
I know this kind of crap goes on everywhere, but I have to get out of this state. New York in a more advanced state of stupidity, cynicism, greed, and decay.
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*Governor by accident Hochul has been obliged to try to bribe memory-chip company Micron with $5.5 billion of our money to try to get 9,000 jobs (maybe) upstate (eventually). Maybe if the state hadn’t done such a great job of screwing natural-born powerhouses like Kodak and General Electric, we wouldn’t be so desperate. (The companies themselves deserve a lot of blame, but manufacturing in New York is like running a triathlon with an anchor on your back.)
**I was not aware myself that of the last big environmental boondoggle, Pataki’s 1996 $1.75 billion proposition, about $182 million still has not been spent. So… they can’t figure out who needs those bribes before they authorize more? The environmental crisis is so acute that we can wait 26 years to do something? As Instapundit says, I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people telling me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.
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