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The November 2024 General Election is rapidly approaching, and a slew of measures is set to appear on your ballot. Among them is Proposition 4, which claims to be a bond measure that will help provide funding for water and fire infrastructure — but the truth is that the funding is being used to plug a whole in the state’s budget deficit and anything that remains will mainly benefit special interests and “climate” programs.
Prop 4, officially titled the “Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024,” would authorize a bond of $10 billion allegedly for building and protecting safe water and wildfire prevention instructure.
Bonds are a credit line for the government, allowing them to borrow money for projects that the public has to pay back — with interest. This means bonds are effectively a tax hike on the public.
Carl DeMaio, chairman of the tax-fighting group Reform California and a candidate for State Assembly, says that additional funding from Prop 4 is not even needed to improve water and fire prevention infrastructure in the state — and can instead be addressed by a change in policy.
“The decay of our water and fire prevention infrastructure is the fault of incompetent politicians and liberal policies that have allowed the release of millions of gallons of clean water into the ocean and prevented the clearing of flammable brush in forests — all to have a theoretical impact on ‘climate change,’” explained DeMaio.
“These policies have had no effect on climate change and have in fact burdened Californians with a manufactured drought and higher water costs — and left thousands at risk of deadly forest fires — so much so that insurance companies are refusing to cover homeowners in risk areas!” he continued.
DeMaio also explains that the funding from Prop 4 — in addition to being unnecessary to address the problems — is an unsustainable debt burden on California.
DeMaio points to California politicians’ current budget plans, which aim to take on $100 billion in debt to pay for new programs — such as the Prop 4 bond — while still leaving current obligations like pensions severely underfunded. This would increase the state’s debt service ratio from 2.8% to 3.2% — and likely mean more tax hikes on the public to help pay down the debt.
Even worse, as DeMaio points out, is that the state does not accurately track and audit its spending. In fact, California authorized over $30 billion in spending to address homelessness — including over $6 billion in funding passed by Prop 1 in the March 2024 Primary Election — and the state has had to admit it doesn’t know how that money has been spent. Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom even vetoed a bill that would have required him to better monitor the distribution of funds.
“Zero accountability for spending — and no results!” said DeMaio. “If the state continues to fail to manage its budget and deliver on what they promise, then why should we authorize more spending?”
DeMaio also says that Prop 4 is purposefully written to lie to and mislead voters.
“The funding in Prop 4 will not go toward water and fire prevention infrastructure — it funds unrelated Green New Deal ‘climate change’ pet projects and benefits the pockets of special interests,” explained DeMaio.
A large amount of Prop 4’s funding goes toward or is able to be diverted toward “nature-based climate solution programs” and “Climate-smart” programs.
In fact, DeMaio warns it is quite likely that not a single dollar of the $10 billion in Prop 4 would actually go toward building water reservoirs or clearing forest brush — the two most critical needs in actually providing more safe water and preventing wildfires.
And this happens routinely — an independent analysis by former State Senator John Moorlach found that over 80% of revenue collected by the state gas tax goes toward administrative salaries or is diverted to completely unrelated projects rather than fixing roads.
“And if the state is barely tracking its spending, then we may never know if they divert Prop 4’s funds to their climate agenda!” explained DeMaio.
“At the end of the day, Prop 4 is a scam that is written to sound like it will help water and fire prevention — but there is no guarantee that even one penny will help and there is zero accountability to make sure that happens — vote NO on Prop 4 and demand better,” concluded DeMaio.
DeMaio and Reform California are opposing Prop 4 and will include their recommendation on the measure and others on the ballot in their annual “Plain English” voter guide, which breaks down your ballot in easy-to-understand terms. The guide will be available in October.
