In article ,
Bert Hyman wrote:

In
Higgs Boson wrote:

This city actually pays half (I think) the cost of conversion,

Which of course means that you're paying for it plus the costs of
adminstering the program.

The real question is what do we get, and what does it cost. The cost is
paid for with everybody's taxes, and everybody in the U.S. benefits from
the water conservation. Central Valley farmers benefit, which allows
them to put vegetables and fruit on your table. Fisheries benefit, which
means fish, such as salmon, are available to feed your family. The
environment benefits by maintaining bio-diversity, and recharging
aquifers. And the people of Southern California benefit, because when
they open their tap, there is water to drink or bath in. It's a
societal approach, not a Tea Bagger approach.

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
(Paperback)
by Toby Hemenway
http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-S...culture/dp/160
3580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271266976&sr=1-1


CHAPTER FIVE

Catching, Conserving,
and Using Water

In truth, our planet should be called Water, not
Earth. About 70 percent of the globe is blanketed
by this life-giving liquid, roughly 331 million
cubic miles of it. But most of that is not available to
us. All but 3 percent of Earth's water is salty; and, of
the remaining dab of fresh water, three-quarters is
locked in ice. It gets worse. About half of what's left,
Earth's unfrozen fresh water, is 2,500 feet or more
below ground, embedded in rock. That's too deep
to recover economically. Are you following these
shrinking numbers? The accessible fresh water
in lakes, rivers, groundwater, and the atmosphere
makes up only half of one-quarter of 3 percent‹for
non-Einsteins, that works out to 0.375 percent‹of
Earth's total water. It's precious stuff.
--
- Billy
Both the House and Senate budget plan would cut Social Security and Medicare, while cutting taxes on the wealthy.

Kucinich noted that none of the government programs targeted for
elimination or severe cutback in House Republican spending plans
"appeared on the GAO's list of government programs at high risk of
waste, fraud and abuse."
http://www.politifact.com/ohio/state...is-kucinich/re
p-dennis-kucinich-says-gop-budget-cuts-dont-targ/

[W]e have the situation with the deficit and the debt and spending and jobs. And it¹s not that difficult to get out of it. The first thing you do is you get rid of corporate welfare. That¹s hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The second is you tax corporations so that they don¹t get away with no taxation.
- Ralph Nader
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/19/ralph_naders_solution_to_debt_crisis