Delores & All,
On the last attempt to pass such a bill (birdseed tax bill) in the
Oregon legislature, it wasn't hunters who were to blame.
The only visible opposition to the bill came from a few birdseed vendors
who were convinced that a small tax on birdseed would reduce their
overall sales. One vendor who testified turned out to be the same person
whom one of the committee co-chairs (I think this was the Ways & Means
Committee) bought her birdseed from. That co-chair then proceeded to
"sit on" the bill until the end of the session.
The other main current of opposition that I heard about (behind the
scenes) was from people who just plain objected to ANY new tax that
would "increase the size of state government," by funding dedicated new
non-game positions in ODFW.
Joel
On Fri, 2016-03-04 at 01:06 -0500, FreeLists Mailing List Manager wrote:
From: Delores Porch <verandafay@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2016 19:11:08 -0800
Subject: [boo] Re: ODFW Statistics for Greater Sage Grouse Harvested
Joel, I couldn't agree with you more regarding funding wildlife from
non hunters. I don't think the issue is that non hunters aren't
willing to pay up. There have been several bills offered in the
Legislature for several years but they don't make it out of the
Natural Resource Committees. Politics, of course. My opinion is that
hunters do not want the "lookers" to have money to back up their
wants. They will loose their political position. I may be jaded on
this issue cause I've worked on it for so many years.
Delores Porch
