"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
Wake up Ed - it has been years since I move back home to Texas.
Martin

You mean those weren't Texas salmon you were complaining about? g

I'm wide awake, Martin. You just don't like to see budgets cut for your
favorite projects. Nobody does, but it puts you in a pretty awkward position
when you're complaining about government spending and then, when they cut a
budget to reduce spending, you cry foul.

You can't have it both ways. But I'll bet you'll keep trying.

--
Ed Huntress


Ed Huntress wrote:
"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
The fish were not trout. They were two species of Salmon.

Oh, excuse me. That changes everything. d8-)

Now few swim to the river any more. Part of the issue is no new
brood that can smell this river. The older ones returning for the
first time might not smell the same river due to various changes.

The number of redwoods saved could be counted on a hand. They were
not threatened. No saving. Just land grab and 'look at what I did'
Mr. ECO himself...not.

The vacation trips and other junk was the shameful part.
The grabbing a home from a retired couple that just got there and
set themselves up over three years for the rest of their life by
pouring money into the property. Their 'fair value' was almost zero.
No one could buy so the land was prices out as western grass land.
It went to court and wasn't heard of since. That was shameful.

Laying off trained firefighters except when they wanted them was
shameful.

Our tax on sport and hunting..... is by law sent to parks and wildlife.
The anti-gun types thought it was just fine to take.

It isn't your money or mine. We all do it. How big is your tank range
?
Bombing Range ? missile Range ? Mountain Range ? etc...

These were federal fisheries. The state ones were trashed by a
governor - Davis.

Martin

Look, Martin, I like trout and salmon, too. Although we don't get the
benefit from federal land that you do (ours are mostly fenced-in naval
ammunition dumps and no-trespass artillery ranges from WWII), I favor
preserving land out west, even if I never get to set foot on it, or fish
for trout or salmon there. I am not anti-tax, as long as it goes for
things that I think are good for all of us. And your salmon are good for
the country, even if I never see one. I have mixed feelings about the way
you handle forest fire hazards out there, but I won't quibble.

The point is, you made some complaints that amounted to budget cuts you
don't like. If we had a federal project to restore our beaches (we pay
for those with state money, not federal), I'll bet you'd be one of the
first in line to complain about how the tax-and-spend liberals were
taking *your* tax money for *our* benefit. Well, Martin, they're taking
*my* tax money to pay for *your* benefit. You get to fish for those
salmon, and to enjoy those preserved outdoors, and I don't. So I could go
off about you being a tax-and-spend liberal spending MY money.

But I won't, because, as I said, I think those are good uses of money. If
taxes have to be cut, I think those are reasonable things to cut, but if
they don't, then let those budgets be.

That's why I'm getting on your case -- because you're blaming someone
else for a budget policy when the complaint is based on cutting a budget
you don't like. As long as it's not in your backyard, I'll bet (and we've
seen comments from you to this effect) that you're all in favor of budget
cuts. As I said, your favorite ox got gored, and the result is that you
turn out not to be against spending tax money on domestic projects at
all...only on the ones you don't benefit from.

I could go off about how westerners and midwesterners are the most
hypocritical people on Earth about taxation, but I won't, even though
I've sat in a farmhouse owned by one of my wife's rock-ribbed-Republican
family friends who bitched about liberals in Washington while ending the
conversation talking about how much corn to plant, based on the federal
subsidies versus market prices. He got it both ways: price supports and
soil-bank payments. Unbelievable hypocricy.

And westerners, who complain about all that federal land that they can't
use as they see fit, ignore the fact that it's MY tax money that's paying
for THEIR federal recreation areas, and fire protection, and grazing
subsidies, and so on. Western states get MUCH more money back in federal
taxes than they pay out. And we get the opposite.

So you're on the dole, and it's paid for by us. If you doubt it, several
people here can point you to the tax facts. I don't mind this so much
until I hear one of you guys start to bitch that you're entitled to more.
That gets my hackles up. And it makes me wonder, sometimes, if it was
smart to grant you full statehood, and to just give you all of that
federal land, in the first place. And I'm only half-joking about that.
d8-)

--
Ed Huntress