> I'd say in contrast, water fees are fundamentally taxes and so water districts are inherently supported by taxes and the talk are "market rate" is basically n

> I'd say in contrast, water fees are fundamentally taxes and so water districts are inherently supported by taxes and the talk are "market rate" is basically neoliberal ideology that aims to squeeze the average rate-payer/tax-payer in the name of "markets" but which doesn't actually use real markets. Thank you for this comment. The disingenuous invocation of "market rate" is the first thing that hit me about this article too. From most everyone's perspective, "market rate" implies a competitive market. But to a monopolist, it means the maximum amount of wealth they can extract from captive customers. eg the peak of the Laffer curve. Or in the world we're headed towards, surveillance driven fine grained price discrimination.