Even among rightie voters in the West, reality is sinking in that conservatism is ripping them off.

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



The Phonies in the Woods
Submitted by David Neiwert on December 10, 2007 - 4:36pm.


It's a sure indicator that all-out rot has begun to sink into conservatism as a governing philosophy when even people in the red states that normally constitute the right's electoral base begin to figure that there's something wrong here.

The point no doubt came home for many of them the past three years when they decided to go fishing or camping somewhere and found that they were being expected to fork over even more money at the trailhead -- with the money actually going toward the private development of business on those lands.

Last week, Sens. Max Baucus, D-Montana, and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, introduced legislation that would bring the Bush administration's scheme to make the public pay twice for using public lands, all to the benefit of the resource-extraction industry.

As promised in an April interview with NewWest.Net, U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) will introduce a bill on Monday to repeal the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act (FLREA), called the Recreational Access Tax (RAT) by its many detractors. Joining him as co-sponsor will be U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), making the repeal a true bipartisan effort.

So, Monday morning could be panic time in the offices of the U.S. Forest Service (FS) and other federal agencies currently involved in aggressive fee policy and widespread closure of recreational sites on public lands.

“It’s time for the RAT tax to go," Baucus told NewWest.Net in announcing the upcoming legislation. "Americans already pay to use their public lands on April 15. We shouldn’t be taxed twice."

Baucus also said, "I’ve crafted a common-sense piece of legislation that will nix this unfair fee system once and for all. Hopefully we can begin to resolve some of the controversies that have dogged communities across the West. Access to public land is a value Westerners hold dear. Families shouldn’t have to pay higher and higher fees to go hiking, camping, hunting or fishing."

........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/phonies_woods?tx=3

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. another example of "All politics is local".

Joe Sixpack might not care about a lot of things, but if he can't go hiking without laying out more money, he's gonna squawk to his congresscritter long and loud.