A tax on hikers and bird people

The comic strip in Thursday morning’s newspaper featuring two of the king’s hooded henchmen/tax collectors standing at the door of Hagar The Horrible, collection sack at the ready, could well have been inspired by the Maine Legislature.

The enforcers have come to collect the tax that the scruffy Viking marauder allegedly owes for breathing. When the indignant Hagar asks how the king could possibly levy a tax on breathing, the lead henchman replies, “Because it’s something everyone does.”

Coming as it did just two days after a Page One story reporting that majority Democrats in the Legislature had concocted a last-minute state budget that also calls for taxing hikers and bird-watchers, the comic strip was well-timed.

According to a story in Tuesday’s paper by BDN State House guy Jay Higgins, the budget package that Democrats put before lawmakers includes an order directing the Department of Conservation to develop a “nonconsumptive user permit” system that could be instituted through rule making to “impose fees and permitting requirements on bird-watchers, hikers and those who use the woods for purposes other than hunting or fishing.”

Although the Democratic budget bill subsequently became somewhat undone, at week’s end the provision calling for a study of the nonconsumptive user permit system was expected to remain. That means that bird-watchers will probably have a couple of years to figure out some way to pass the tax on to the avian constituency that regularly visits Maine’s backyard feeding stations.

The chickadees would probably go along with it, being our state bird and long used to their responsibilities in that cherished role. It was a dedicated chickadee, after all, who years ago came up with the Chickadee Checkoff box on the Maine state income tax form to help keep things afloat, inspiring chickadees in other states to follow suit. But the blue jays and crows, boisterous bandits that they are, would surely instigate anarchy by stiffing any pay-to-eat system. And there would go the neighborhood.

With the state seemingly fast going broke, taxing hikers and bird-watchers may well be an idea whose time has come, along with other “revenue enhancers” yet to be dreamed up by Augusta’s deep thinkers, bound only by the limits of their imaginations.

Herewith, a list of possibilities to prime the pump:

There could be a tax on mowing the lawn, say, based on how close Mower Guy cuts the grass, and how often, and whether he uses an air-polluting gasoline-powered mower or tries to finesse the tax man by employing a herd of goats to do the job. In the latter case, Goat Guy could be required to obtain a nontransferable consumptive user permit at a fee no less than the median lawn-mowing levy in neighboring precincts, plus state sales tax on the grass consumed by the goats.

A procrastination tax on putting off until tomorrow what should have been done today could be assessed citizens whose ambition flags unduly. If Bubba should say the hell with mowing the lawn, opting instead to grab a beer, lie in the grass and gaze at the clouds in the sky – or, for that matter, contemplate his navel – the same nonconsumptive user fee schedule that applies to gawking bird-watchers could kick in.

A tax on inane conversations held on public property is certainly worth looking into. The mother lode – the vast legions of numbhead exhibitionist cell phone users who walk around mindlessly jabbering amongst total strangers – is just sitting there, begging to be tapped. That one alone should easily bring in more than enough loot to balance the state budget twice over.

As well, the state’s cash flow could be kept humming through a stiff levy on jocks and coaches who say “ya know” and/or “I mean” more than 20 times in a two-minute radio interview. Other taxable targets: people who send you packages sealed with eight yards of industrial strength duct tape. Anyone who wears shorts, outdoors, in Maine, in winter. And so on.

Despite such possibilities, however, no new tax scheme is likely to surpass the brilliance of the proposed tax on hikers and bird-watchers and anyone else who uses the Maine woods for other than hunting and fishing.

You ask why? Because when that assessment kicks in, the state can collect four-fold from hunters and fishermen who must hike through the woods to reach their deer stands and trout ponds. Once each for the hunting and fishing licenses, once for the privilege of taking a leisurely stroll through God’s country, and once for watching the little birdies cavort overhead on the way to and from.

Oh, yeah. That’ll work.

Columnist Kent Ward’s e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net