Another thing government sucks at

Even many libertarians believe that government is the most efficient way to deliver basic utilities - like water drainage, for instance. An example out of Dallas shows this isn’t true.

Water trickles through the dirt ditch now, past Modesto Medina’s back yard and into the Trinity River. … Watching the Weather Channel’s forecast Tuesday night for more rain was a reminder that their home could soon sag into the bottom of a city drainage creek designed to carry floodwaters to the Trinity River.

That’s right, the City of Dallas, in its overarching wisdom, builds a drainage creek behind this family’s yard, fails to properly reinforce the sides, and the trench takes away their backyard. So the city’s coming to save the day, right? Of course not.

City crews dumped fill dirt into the crevice and placed a concrete slab near the house’s storm drain to reduce erosion. But the dirt has washed away, and the slab has pulled away from the house. Mr. Medina said that he has urged the city to build a concrete ditch or buy his property but that the city said the cost was too great.

See, this is what you get when you trust government to do anything. Hopefully this guy will take the city to court and make them fix it up, but this is a whole lot of crap he shouldn’t have had to go through.