Hacker News Reader

Comment by pope_meat | Hacker News Reader

I don't want to be priced out of the water market the same way I got priced out of the housing market.

But then again, sacrifices must be made to the profit gods, it is the way.

Sigh.

Water should be a basic human right. No human should ever be priced out. Whatever infrastructure is needed to bring potable water to people, the government should pay for it. The whole point of governments is to pay for basic infrastructure like this. Taxes ought to fund something other than politician corruption.

Corporations on the other hand have no human rights at all. They can and should be priced out.

> The whole point of governments is to pay for basic infrastructure like this.

That's a pretty steep oversimplification there. Governments usually exist to promote justice and rule-of-law, keep people safe from internal and external threats to their physical safety, and to protect individual freedoms and liberty.

Paying for infrastructure is only a small part of all of that.

Everything you cited is part of the common good. So is infrastructure. Governments exist to pay for this stuff, especially the unprofitable endeavors that benefit everyone.

They essentially rob their population in order to do it. If a government isn't paying, it's corrupt.

I dont want to speak directly for the person you are replying to, but I think the point they are trying to make is this. Government exists for lots of reasons. If government has to spend more money to provide fresh water of the people (as it should if needed), it costs more. To cover the costs, there are two direct resources. Higher taxes or taking funds from elsewhere. Higher taxes would also mean less funds to draw from for other projects.

And I dont think it is to be taken in an anti-tax way, but a statement on resource allocation. If water becomes expensive for the people and government needs to subsidize or up subsidies, is there a risk that infrastructure for bridges get ignored to keep taxes low? Or to not tax people into poverty. Of course we can offset this with closing loop holes and upping taxes on the higher brackets.

Wouldn't ensuring a reliable supply of safe drinking water fall under keeping people safe from threats to their physical safety?

Technically, no. But safe drinking water does fall under other categories of "promoting the general welfare", so that's not to say it shouldn't be under government's purview.

That will only happen if you live in a region that is arid or semi-arid. Most of the US is literally overflowing with fresh water and almost all the expense for water is related to simply piping it to you or cleaning up the wastewater you create. For the vast majority of people in the USA, water is very cheap.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com