Fees closing Maine big-game registration stations

Associated Press ^ | 9/23/09

[george76]

Some big-game registration stations, upset over a $4 fee increase to tag bears, have stopped providing the service in Maine.

For many years, store owners charged hunters $1 to register animals, pocketing the money. The Legislature added $4 to be sent to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife...

Hunters cannot keep an unregistered bear, deer, moose or wild turkey at home or any place of storage for more than 18 hours...

[george76]

New Taxes and new fees eventually hit the Laffer Curve.

[pallis]

Bummer. You gotta let the meat cure for a couple of days, and after that, it can be beef in the freezer.

[mbynack]

I remember when they jacked up the cost of hunting and fishing licenses and people quit buying them. They didn't quit hunting and fishing, they just quit buying licenses.

I was about 14 when my dad, who was the sole bread-winner in my house, broke his back and couldn't work. I put a lot of fish and meat on the table with a fishing rod and 22 rifle.

[wbill]

Imagine that....state raises taxes, people stop the behavior that's causing them to be taxed.

This is going to be 98% of the coming revolution. Should the current power structures (local, state, national) keep up their more onerous regulations...I don't think that there will be open rebellion. I think that more people will just say "To Heck With This" and just ignore the law.

Hard to toss a nation of lawbreakers in jail. Particularly when the enforcers are generally sympathetic.