It appears that Arizona is facing a water crisis. It has many facets, but here are some that are worth considering, both for people in Arizona and elsewhere. This is the case even if the FedGov-pressured grand agreement between Arizona and a half dozen other States actually goes into effect. (And if you believe that agreement will really solve anything, I assume you also believe the GOP debt-limit proposal will save the nation.)

But back to water in Arizona.

A Saudi company is leasing thousands of acres of State land and buying up thousands more of private farmland in the southwestern Arizona, along the Colorado River Valley and several tributary streams. That is desert… The Saudis appear to have unlimited rights to pump everything they can (if we believe CBS) and use it to grow alfalfa. Which is then shipped to Arabia to feed to milk cows. Why? Because it is illegal to grow alfalfa in Arabia because it requires so much water.

The government of Arizona’s response?

First, they are trying to ban foreign governments and companies and individuals from owning farmland. (Texas has just passed something similar, for “hostile nations.”) Not only is this stupid, but it changes more than a century of American customs. (I’d say customs that made us what we are today, but that is very negative, isn’t it?)

But there are also reports that the idiots in Phoenix are looking at yet another ban: actually banning all farming in that part of Arizona. Regardless of ownership, product, or water supply.

Frankly, this is insane – and repeating the same sort of stupid mistakes that created the problem in the first place. Why?

First, people blame farmers for wasting water and drying up the Colorado River and its tributaries. It is true that farms do use a lot of water, but we need to remember: (a) it is awfully nice to have food to eat and (b) the insatiable thirst for water is more from urban areas – and primarily residential and recreational, even above industrial.

Second, it is various States’ water laws (and those of the FedGov, passed by Congress) that created the problem and are the immediate cause of this problem with Saudi alfalfa. Arizona could have established a reasonable and fair way of adjudicating water rights. Other States have – and despite problems, they generally work to keep people from hogging limited water. And States could have ended the “tragedy of the commons” that water use suffers from because it is owned by the public. But they didn’t.

Third, California’s massive population and its waste of water for everything from lawn sprinklers to car-washes to Hollywood, and its refusal to use desalinization technology and remove salt (and other things) from sea water, means that other States in the region are harmed. Including Arizona.

But instead of dealing with the source of the water problem, Arizona seeks to “fix” the symptoms. And they are going to be puzzled when the “patient” dies.

Because when government officials and bureaucrats – especially elected ones – make stupid mistakes, people suffer. With government, there is no “win-win” – only a matter of figuring out how many people lose how much.

In the Arizona water situation, it is not Saudi border-jumpers who are growing alfalfa and “wasting water.” And mostly it is not Saudis who will suffer when Arizona prohibits farms in this area. It will be Americans and Mexicans. It will be local people who lose their jobs, lose their income, and see prices rise.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that the government goons would think about that.

But they don’t.