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Fee Programs

Man Who Would Not Pay Forest Use Fee Is Found Guilty in Closely Watched Case

DAILY FORESTRY NEWS and COMMENTARY
http://www.advancedforestry.com/
Thursday, February 08, 2001

A protester loses his court bid to have the Adventure Pass declared improper.

Let's explore the recreational user impact fee syndrome. The premise behind the fee is that recreationists should pay for their impacts. Fair enough.

Tobacco farmers should pay for their own farming.

EcoLuddite groups should pay for their own litigation (i.e., no government grants).

Every user of every road should pay for their use of that road at the moment of use.

If you enjoy watching TV pics of the Space Shuttle, you should be paying a fee to do so, in support of the space program.

Each time you look at a speed limit sign, you should pay a fee, because someone must pay for the sign, and it might as well be users.

You should pay for viewing the papers you use produced by each and every research project that received government funds, for you are a user, and it must be paid for.

Each time you see a pic of the White House on TV or in print, you should pay a user fee, for someone must pay for the groundskeepers and maintenance staff to do their thing. It might as well be users.

Communications frequencies belong to the government, wooops, the people, and every time you use a communications device, you should pay a user fee.

Every time you drive through Colorado and enjoy the scenery, or even so much as look at a photo of anything in the state, you should pay a whopper, a real wallet buster, because to keep it that way, ecoLuddites falsely argue we must stand and stare and do nothing, save for fight forest fires in dense overstocked stands, so you, the user, should pay up.

Those that visit grocery stores and read nutrition labels, mandated by law and the blanks having been filled in as the result of expensive analysis, should pay a label user fee, because you are benefiting, and you have the choice to buy or not buy the product.

Those of you in California that have not planned for your energy needs by expanding your infrastructure should pay a user fee, for using me and the rest of us not in California. Here we sit on unimaginable gas and oil and coal resources, and now a little 500-gallon propane tank cost $1120 to fill, compared to $400 not all that long ago. We've been used, and you owe us a user fee.

When you look up at the night sky and see a passing satellite, you owe a user fee for the wonderment. Somebody has to pay for those things, and if you looked and smiled, you should pay.

When you drive through Kansas in August and 'take in' hill after rolling hill (or flat after flat) of corn in picturesque farm settings on a lovely blue-skied day, pay up. Kansans created those views, you used them, you're gonna hafta pay.

Every time you talk to a government employee, you should pay a minimum $30 service fee. This is fair. You are the user. And, it matches 'help line' rates of many software behemoths, whom you also use if you call them because their software used you.

If you row your boat within the 200-mile territorial limit on the ocean waters of the United States of America, or on any navigable river, which if you are an endangered one covered by the Endangered Individual Act now includes intermittent draws that rarely see water, then you must pay a user fee, because someone must pay for it.

If you breath, pay up. You are breathing the clean air resulting from the gracious actions of your government, and, well, somebody has to pay, so it might as well be users. And if you exhale, and out comes the C02, pay again, because somebody must pay for all those global warming studies and UN agencies trumpeting the end of the planet for your sake, and since you are the benefactor, you should pay a user fee. Because both inhalation and exhalation will be monitored, a dual in/out meter will be mounted on your face. If you cheat, we'll know: the number of ins better match the number of outs, or there will be an additional fee.

If you move into a new house, you have user fees to pay for the additional government services required. You are the user. Somebody must pay, even if you are moving from one place in the city to another. Even if you are 80 years old and have been living there your whole life paying away, one tax after another. Don't laugh. This is the method in Fort Collins, and in many other growing cities looking for ways to suck off more of your tax dollars.

The moral of the story. Government wants more of your money, and these guys are geniuses at coming up with schemes and methods to get more. It doesn't really matter what your argument is in support of recreational user fees. The reality is that without authority of any kind granted by the Constitution, the federal government has laid claim to vast amounts of our landscape. This has always been claimed to be in the public good, ahoy, for if government did not own it, it would be wasted upon the illogic and greed of the citizen. You. You ignorant pigs out there. Government has it, and this is good, and better, and you can visit, because its yours, but don't try to sell your share, because you really don't own it, we just say you do, so that we have control. And like suckers, we fall for it. Maybe they are right, we are stupid. But, I'll tell you what, as they say in the Rockies. The moment you slap recreational user fees on visitors to public lands, you have violated the faith and trust that was requested of citizens from the start. If there is anything government should pay for from your taxes, it is the simple expense of allowing citizens to freely roam on what government claims is their land. That was the promise. Look at the cost-revenue ratio of these government natural resource programs. Can we say hello? Wake up and smell the events? All implementation of recreational user fees does is confirm that to exist, there is a cost, and to be efficient, there must be competition, and by implementing user fees, government admits there is a cost to providing services, BUT: there is no factor that can impel the bureaucracy to reduce costs through the streamlining of management processes. None, zero, nada. Keep on spending, boys and girls, keep on planning and planning and planning and going to court to entertain litigation and plan again and almost implement and then withdraw everything because you succumb to puny as in microscopic special interests that want things done their way and only their way.

Then turn around and declare recreation and timber and minerals and water and grazing cost too much, so there shouldn't be any, or better yet, let's slap user fees on the silly suckers that already pay on their 1040.

Give me a break.

It's just another spike in the coffin of government ownership of land and resources.