# I Swear I'm Not Making this Up



## Canadian (Jan 17, 2008)

Okay,

The City Council released a "report" saying, and I kid you not: "Residents can save on water bills by using less, report confirms". 

I've got to get in on that scam. Maybe I can publish a report saying, "Higher income people live in bigger houses" or "Ambulance service should be limited to emergencies". 

I want to know, who paid, who did the report and why does City Council need a report for the most obvious of things.


Tom


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## JerseyJohn (Oct 26, 2007)

I can't comment on your specific situation, but it's not as obvious as you might think. Obviously, if _one_ person uses less water, that one person will save money. But if the water service is a cooperative and the vast majority of its costs are fixed by the cost of the infrastructure and mostly independent of the total amount of water actually used, it's not obvious that if _everybody _used less water they'd save money. The water service may just have to spread the same costs over less cubic feet.


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## Canadian (Jan 17, 2008)

Suppose it is cooperative? Suppose it is a condition where, as civil servants do, build to capacity, not need. Suppose it takes 12 units of water to supply the needs of a particular group. If capacity is for 15 units of water, then the person using the 12 should pay for all 15? 

In the modern welfare state, we are called to pay for the needs of the whole by being taxed according to various forumulae which does things like pay for structures of the common good.

Without going on a tangent, should 911 service be solely limited in cost to people who phone 911? No, of course not. We pay for certain things because there is a potential that we may need them (ie using up maximum capacity of water usage) by charging the whole. As horrific as this is, Canadians would never elect a local or provincial government which put the cost, purely on it's users.

Would you prefer that nobody pays in general, and charged the single user for 15 units, when he only consumes 12?

Socialist, I know (and I am an avowed capitalist) but things like this are seen as public good.

Tom


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

I think his point is that there's virtually no unit cost for water. 

What costs money is the water system (servicing the debt incurred to buy it, maintaining it, etc.). The people who use the water have to pay for the system one way or the other (if they don't, they'll lose the whole system). You could allocate the cost equally to each person, or on the basis of use. Generally, allocating on the basis of use is thought to make the most sense. 

In any event, consider two people: Guy A and Guy B. They live in a town with 5,000 residents. Today, A uses .01% of the community's water, and B (who has a pool, fountains, and extremely clean clothes) uses .1%.

Pure Use Based Fees
Last year:
A paid .01% of the fixed cost of having a water system
B paid .1% of the fixed cost of having a water system
This year, everyone in town hears the message, and every single one of them cuts his consumption in half. Now:
A pays .01% of the fixed cost of having a water system (exactly what he paid last year)
B pay .1% of the fixed cost of having a water system (exactly what he paid last year)

Pure Head Tax Based Fees/Taxes
Last year:
A pays .02% of the fixed cost of having a water system
B pays .02% of the fixed cost of having a water system
This year:
A pays .02% of the fixed cost of having a water system
B pays .02% of the fixed cost of having a water system

It really doesn't matter if its a cooperative. Most water systems are municipal; those that aren't, and are privately owned, would - pretty much of necessity, given the absurdity of allowing competition by building multiple water systems to service the same houses - be regulated utilities. Whether they're private or public, utilities' rates wind up being set by some regulatory body on the basis of their costs.

In any event, even when you're talking about taxes (as opposed to utility charges), pure "per head" taxes are quite rare. Typically, tax burdens are allocated on the basis of income, value of property owned and various other bases.


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

Canadian said:


> Canadians would never elect a local or provincial government which put the cost, purely on it's users.


Who _does_ pay for Canadian water systems?


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## Mike Petrik (Jul 5, 2005)

I've lived in quite a few places and never encountered one where there was not a unit cost for water at least to some significant extent. While such places may exist, they are undoubtedly exceptional, and I'll bet our OP does not live in one.


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## Mike Petrik (Jul 5, 2005)

Starch said:


> Who _does_ pay for Canadian water systems?


Plainly people who don't use water. ;-)
But if the prefatory point is that Canadians would rather separate the amount charged from the extent of use, that is plausible. Socialists do tend to believe that the people who should pay for a product or service are those with money rather than those who benefit.


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## Canadian (Jan 17, 2008)

I (and keeping in mind I'm a Tory) was trying to indicate that a public utility, built with tax dollars is funded by people, through their taxation. No reasonable government would operate on the idea that one must pay for the infrastructure, if they receive no direct benefit. Rather than making it purely user-pay, our government levies (admittedly) progressive taxes to pay for public works.

The alternative is to levy sufficient user-pay fees to pay for the infrastructure over time where one calculates infrastructure being useful versus the minimum amount needed to pay for it before it becomes obsolete or in ill state. In that case, persons who use say, low flow showers, put a brick in their toilet bank and don't water their lawns would pay a lessor amount than others, not based on the concept of using less water, but on the idea that they deserve to pay less for infrastructure. 

I'm not a math whiz. I'm a policy wonk. But the idea that we should have "access" is the reason why we are levied taxes based on our income. If everybody paid .5% of what they were levied in taxes to pay for the new sewage treatment plant and the pipes required to deliver the service, it differs the issue from having everybody pay based purely on how many units they use. 

I'm actually in favour of user pay, but only for things which the government should not be regulating. I went hiking last weekend. I paid 7.80 to get in the park. I don't think my neighbour should pay to subsidize my hiking activities. But I don't think asking my neighbour to pay more money towards public works because they water their lawn. Especially when the linkage between collection of utility bills and construction and upkeep are tenuous at best. 

Government isn't perfect. I have a hard time believing that a 5 dollar charge tied onto my water bill actually goes to enable the production of clean water. I would rather we all fork over .5% of income (preferably a flat rate) and build stuff. That way, it's upkeep isn't defined by user amounts, when we basically all "access" the water. Should I be paying 10% of my bill one month for infrastructure, then 11% the next month because I want to fill a swimming pool in my backyard? Shouldn't I be paying for "access" rather than "quantity"? Does my water cost more to produce, merely because I use more of it?

I know it may seem like a Commie-rat's scheme, but you would be amazed by the dirt the government uses to justify it's actions. If it was strictly user-pay, should areas which don't use a lot of water get the worst service when it comes to infrastructure?

Tom


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Canadian said:


> Suppose it is cooperative? Suppose it is a condition where, as civil servants do, build to capacity, not need. Suppose it takes 12 units of water to supply the needs of a particular group. If capacity is for 15 units of water, then the person using the 12 should pay for all 15?
> 
> In the modern welfare state, we are called to pay for the needs of the whole by being taxed according to various forumulae which does things like pay for structures of the common good.
> 
> ...


LOL. What you refer to as socialism, those of us living to the south of you refer to as "Obamamania"...alas, a potentially terminal illness for a nations economy!


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

JerseyJohn said:


> I can't comment on your specific situation, but it's not as obvious as you might think. Obviously, if _one_ person uses less water, that one person will save money. But if the water service is a cooperative and the vast majority of its costs are fixed by the cost of the infrastructure and mostly independent of the total amount of water actually used, it's not obvious that if _everybody _used less water they'd save money. The water service may just have to spread the same costs over less cubic feet.


That cinches it.

I'm getting a pool AND a shark aquarium!!


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## JerseyJohn (Oct 26, 2007)

Canadian said:


> Suppose it takes 12 units of water to supply the needs of a particular group. If capacity is for 15 units of water, then the person using the 12 should pay for all 15?


Unless I'm misunderstanding you, "the person using the 12" would be the entire customer base. That's a pretty artificial situation. Do you mean should the particular _group _using 12 pay for the entire 15? Well, that depends. Are the group using 12 willing to bet that they'll never need 15 and understand and accept that they will never get more than 12 because they haven't paid for the infrastructure?

I'm not trying to get into arguments about socialism, pro or con. I'm just pointing out something I learned in Econ 101: the "fallacy of composition" - the belief that's what's true for one person will be true if extended to everyone. It's a lesson we've seen here in NJ. Our property taxes are based on assessed value. Now in 2006, we all had big assessed values. In 2010, after the real estate "bubble" burst, the assessed values dropped. But our taxes have been more or less the same. Now if my house _alone _had dropped in value, I would have gotten a huge tax cut. But because _everybody's_ values dropped, it made virtually no difference because the budget still has to be spread over everyone according to the _relative_ value of their property unless we want to start firing police and closing schools.


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## Oldsarge (Feb 20, 2011)

My response, self-centered sort that I must be, is that if I can save money by using less and forcing the rest of the community to pay more because they use more I'm planting cactus! And bathing in a sauna! And drinking beer! :icon_smile_big:


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## MikeDT (Aug 22, 2009)

Canadian said:


> Okay,
> 
> The City Council released a "report" saying, and I kid you not: "Residents can save on water bills by using less, report confirms".
> 
> I've got to get in on that scam. Maybe I can publish a report saying, "Higher income people live in bigger houses" or "Ambulance service should be limited to emergencies".


Ambulance service? what's that? I know it's a 400KM drive if an ambulance is needed. Better know some first aid.


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## imabsolutelyunique (Jul 17, 2012)

LOL. No matter what the excuse is, I don't find it acceptable. A waste of energy and time.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

But houses need to use water just about every day.


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