[at-l] OT - A question of fees

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 05:49 PM 7/1/2004 -0400, Bror8588@aol.com wrote:
>Also, aren't the Republicans supposed to be against higher taxes?  These
>"fees" are in fact taxes upon the users of the wilderness.

The Republicans *are* in favor of user fees. In fact some (many?) 
Republicans are in favor of privatizing the National Parks so that only 
those who use them pay for them.

>   Will those who use
>other publicly owned entities next?  Will I have to pay a "fee" to listen to
>anything broadcast over the Publicly owned airwaves?

Reagan tried to eliminate Federal support of NPR. He did succeed in getting 
the funding reduced to the point that in addition to membership drives, NPR 
now has to seek "underwriters" (read that advertising) to stay solvent. In 
a sense you do pay a (backdoor) tax to listen to commercial radio on the 
public airways. Every purchase you make from a business contains a mark up 
to cover their advertising. You pay it to support programming on the 
radio/tv station(s) where they advertise, whether you listen to those 
stations or not.

>  What about using the
>beaches?  Will there be a "fee" for wading in the ocean?
>
>Hey, another tack might be to just refuse to pay any fee for using "public
>lands" and we all go to jail together -- oh, you mean there is going to be 
>a fee
>to "use the publicly owned" jails?

Haven't you heard? Some jails now charge inmates for at least part of the 
expense of keeping them in jail. Like Dave Barry, I'm not making this up. 
Try a Google search on "charging inmates rent". Here's one link 
<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,57581,00.html>.