Predicting how something will work in the future is chancey at best, especially when the future includes a completely different set of circumstances. However, here are some thoughts on how things might work preceded by some philosophical comments.
Texas Constitution 2000 is based on the concept of the sovereign
individual.
Another item that confuses many (most?) people is the concept of property. Many people think that property is the collection of dirt (the lot) where their house sits. The correct term for the collection of dirt is "land". Property is the ownership of the right to use a physical resource. Your property, as it relates to where you house sits, is the right to use the land to support a house, landscaping, etc. Others may have property in the same collection of dirt. For example, the phone company may own an easement that allows them to dig up a portion of your yard to get to buried telephone lines. In the same way, you can own property in the use of the water in a stream that runs through your land. If someone later starts using the water upstream from your land, they cannot lawfully take so much that you can no longer take the amount of water that you have been taking. (This situation actually existed in Colorado before there were government bureaucrats. Some remnants of that system still exist today.) As you read the following, keep in mind that property is the right to use a physical resource and is not the physical resource itself.
Road maintenance is probably the most difficult item to address, primarily because roads have been controlled by governments for centuries. This long-term government control has distorted what would have been the free market in roads, so much so that it is difficult to even imagine what the free market would have come up with. If we were to arrive on an unspoiled new continent with no human population, then roads would be built as and if needed with someone expending resources to create property (ownership) in the new road. It would then be the owner's responsibility to maintain the road. If others want to use the road, they would have to obtain permission, possibly by paying a small fee, from the owner. If users of the road damaged the road, they would then be responsible for repairing the road or paying damages to the owner. Roads actually worked this way in the early United States of America and we had begun to develop a fairly extensive network of private roads until the US Government decided to build the "post roads", which made it very difficult for private roads to compete. That's how we got to the situation currently existing. The question now becomes, "How can we convert the road system to the free market without, in the process, denying road access to those who have been using them for decades? (Under the Common Law, using something, such as roads, for a long period of time creates property (ownership) in that use.)
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1997 recognized the conundrum created by trying to allow the free market to handle what has been a government monopoly for a long time. The compromise finally worked out makes it the responsibility of the new Texas government organizations to maintain the current public rights of way (mostly roads but also bridges, sidewalks, etc) but to restrict the new government organizations from creating any new public rights of way. Therefore, any new roads, bridges, sidewalks, etc will be private, i.e., they will be built, owned, and maintained by those who need them. Over a period of years, private roads will slowly replace the government ones. But how do we maintain the current public rights of way, especially since the new governments do not have taxing power?
There are a number of possible solutions to this problem and we have faith that the officials of the new Texas government organizations will be able to come up with some creative solutions. Here are a couple of possibilities.
Many people currently believe that only government rules and regulations can stop people from using up resources faster than they can be replaced. To support this argument, they cite such examples as the over-harvesting of the ocean whale population, the virtual extinction of the American Buffalo, and the over-harvesting of many now endangered species. The problem with this argument, and these examples, is that the resources are not owned by anyone. (This is usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons.) If resources are not owned by anyone, then it is to everyone's advantage to take as many of the resources as possible before someone else gets them. Even in the face of government rules and regulations, entreprenuers will figure out a way around them provided that the cost of doing so is less than the profit to be obtained. To see the utter inadequacy of government control of resources, we need only look at the legacy of pollution left by the former "Eastern Bloc" governments or, closer to home, our own national forests that get strip cut under government contracts.
Contrast the above with the situation in which someone owns the resources. Ranchers have for decades successfully managed the game population on their own land. Forests owned by logging companies are carefully managed to maintain a consistent supply of timber. This works so well because it is to the owners advantage to do so. Otherwise, after a few years, the owner will be left with virtually worthless property. And if someone attempts to take resources that are owned, that constitutes theft which can be prosecuted in court, and probably will be since there is an owner involved rather than some nebulous "public interest".
The situation with fish is slightly harder to understand but is handled by the free market in the same way, i.e., ownership. In the case of ocean, stream, or lake fishing, someone must own a portion (or all) of the ocean, stream, or lake. This someone could be an individual but, more likely, will be an association of fishermen who have agreed to pool their resources to purchase the ocean, stream, or lake. Since most such oceans, streams, and lakes are currently "public property", i.e., owned by no one, the Texas Constitution 2000 Transition Plan envisions the auctioning of all government-owned property which will include oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, etc. Once someone other than the government owns the water, then that someone becomes responsible for managing the resources in his or her water to his or her advantage. The owner can now close the area to all but his own use, sell permits to use the water for certain things, sell rights to the fish in the water, etc. As with roads, water has been considered a public resource for a long time so any sale of water will have to recognize the ownership of pre-existing uses, such as extracting water for drinking, irrigation, etc. There is no reason to believe that owners of water resources will be any less intelligent in the management of their resources than owners of land resources (ranchers) have been.
Here again, ownership is the key. In the days before the Environmental Protection Agency, if a factory down the street started spewing black smoke which dirtied Aunt Sally's washing, Aunt Sally could take the factory owner to court and obtain relief. Now, under the EPA, as long as the factory is spewing less than the regulations allow, Aunt Sally is out of luck. A related problem is that the factory is probably owned by a corporation with a government-granted charter which provides the corporation with certain "advantages", such as protection from being sued as long as the corporation is complying with government rules. Under Texas Constitution 2000, government organizations in Texas will be prohibited from granting such charters. This means that corporations will operate under the same rules as everyone else, i.e., "Do not damage anyone or anyone's property." In other words, the criteria for judgement will be who caused the damage and how much damage was caused rather than did the corporation follow the government's rules?