Florida Libertarian News & Info

By LEE COUNTY Libertarian Donald "Kim" Hawk

Two questions are commonly asked of me as a board member of the Lee County Soil and Water Conservation District.

1. What is the Lee Soil and Water Conservation District and
2. Why does it exist?

I was able to condense my answer to the first question into one sentence: Our agency is a taxpayer-funded charity. As I formed those words I realized I had described most of the government programs in existence today.

Until we ended the program in January 2007, our main charity was a "free" lawn sprinkler check up. "Free" meant other taxpayers were picking up the tab to the tune of $500 per visit. Dozens of private companies in Lee County provide thousands of inspections for $30 to $80 per visit.

The answer to the second question requires more explanation. The year was 1937 and Franklin Roosevelt seemed to believe that if he put enough people to work for the government, the depression would end. Thousands of government programs including soil and water districts were created, employing millions of Americans.

Little attention was paid to the burgeoning debt.

Fast forward to today and we have a virtual alphabet soup of overlapping and competing federal, state and local agencies vying for and often suing each other over control of water and soil.

Our money came from a variety of taxpayer funded sources including the USDA, Florida Department of Agriculture, SFWMD, Lee County government and Cape Coral city government.

We eliminated our budget because there is no logical reason to maintain these vestiges of the "New Deal." Soil and water districts across the country are bureaucracies in search of a mission and should be discarded. I believe the most effective strategy for conserving water is to promote private ownership of water utilities.

Most Americans don't realize that the essence of every economic policy debate is one of capitalism vs. socialism. Many people I have met and virtually all politicians are what I call "selective socialists." They argue that some things are too precious to be entrusted to greedy capitalists. They include healthcare, K-12 education and water distribution but paradoxically leave food, shelter and clothing to the ruthless profiteers.

Water is a commodity and should be treated as one. Water is like electricity in that we are captive customers and therefore have no choice of provider. The difference is that electricity is supplied by private companies whose prices reflect the cost of production. Cost to the consumer is proportional to the amount used which explains why we don't have an electricity conservation board. Conservation is promoted by the pocketbook.

Media hype and alleged crises of dwindling water supplies would be comical if they weren't taken so seriously. Hysterical claims of water shortages grab headlines and promote fear but sidestep the actual problem which is government mismanagement.

We Americans will never run out of drinking water although we may run out of free or cheap supplies. I realized this a few years ago when people began casually dropping a dollar for 12 ounces of bottled H2O. The end of the era of government water pumped to your home for a penny a gallon (5,000 gallons for $50) does not mean our Florida lifestyle is over. Recycled and brackish irrigation for golf courses and lawns in concert with tolerant plants and grasses will become common and reverse osmosis is already well established in our area. Where there is a will there is a way.

The elegance of the free market is its ability to adapt and innovate. It always finds a solution to even the most intractable problems without throwing people in jail or turning neighbors into snitches. Whether or not we accept it, history has shown us that capitalism is the only method which works in the real world.

Although Roosevelt began our descent into debt, we are now in a full blown dive as we scream past the $9 trillion mark, with no end in sight. We absolutely must put an end to this madness.

The Libertarian majority at the Soil and Water Board is taking the lead in Lee County. I hope others will follow.

- Donald "Kim" Hawk is a member of the board of the Lee Soil and Water Conservation District.

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