Gah! I'm so tired of having to pay all these stupid fees. Parking fees, launch fees, pretty soon they'll have fees for walking out on the docks like they do on the east coast. Every time I go to Lake Samammish State Park, it sets me back $5. And I accidentially stayed out too long the other night and they locked my car in, and gave me a big fat $45 parking ticket too. Anyone else had this happen? I knew that they sometimes locked your car in parks if you stayed too long, but not that they gave you parking tickets too. Bah.

I wish there were a decal you could buy for your car that would absolve you from these stupid fees. Like maybe pay $40 or so to pay for a year of no fees.

Carefull you are starting to sound like a foil wearing republican

PS: I can't help but respond to this. The idea of user fees is very much a republican idea. Democrats tend to want to have higher taxes and fewer fees. A more communal system whereby we all pay and the cost of the service is not as obvious as it is with user fees. Republicans tend to want to have lesser taxes and to have the users pay for the "service" received. This is a concept I support, IF the fee is roughly equivalent to the cost of the service.

I can understand why eastern Washington republicans do not want to pay for western Washington ferries. T o me users fees are the fairest of taxes. A pain in the keister sometimes, but what could be more fait than the guy getting the service paying for it? Cal me crazy but I favor toll bridges, trail fees, launch fees, etc. IF the fee is appropriate and IF the money is used only to cover the cost of the service. Gosh I guess I better get some foil and join the elephant party, at least on this issue.

Dave I agree with you on the fee concept. However in this state the fees get dumped into the cavernous maw of the state general fund.

The key word to me is "reasonable", and there is the rub. What is reasonable to me doesn't often seem to gel with what I pay.

And the solution has become so complicated WHO can solve the problem?

I saw an article last week graphing what the state collects in taxes. Do you realize that the amount of taxes collected by the state has more than doubled since 1992?

Big Brother is an ineffective as he is expensive.

Let's fish and get drunk.....

Aunty,
"Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither freedom or security". (Ben Franklin)

Slug: Right on! I just finished a biography of Ben. What a great American! I'm convinced we would still be British without his amazing negotiating skills, both to get the French to come in on our side and to negotiate the peace treaty with the British.

Well, I too think that user fees are the fairest type of taxes. But instead of having us regular users bleed through the gills (you go out 6 times a month and that's $30) they should offer a license like the 'usage license' you get with your fishing license. What good is that thing anyway? I'm not saying that everyone should pay for us, just let us buy a sticker we can put on the back of our car and let the people that only go once a year or so pay the one time fee.

Ideally user fees and use taxes like the sales tax would be the most fair. Unfortunately we give tax breaks and use taxes in unusual ways so the user fees would have to be regulated so the fees go where they belong. What would happen though would be something like this: I pay my user fee to supply revenue for the park and those who don't wish to work claim poverty and get in free. So my fee has to go up to cover those who "can't afford it"..Then once there was enough money in the fund for the park Ron Simms would come along and assess the park it's share of his boondoggle....maybe the Sound Transit mess...then all of a sudden the park's money is wasted and gone so the State threatens to close the park unless we raise property taxes of some other tax...

A fishing related example is the money in our fishing license fees that is under law supposed to go to Puget Sound salmon enhancement is being misappropriated at Soos Creek. Another example is how WDFW is assessed a percentage of other departments costs .That is just like taxing a state agency a user fee to use the other department's resources but it really goes to such things as paying lawsuit awards for DSHS....They get sued for incpmpetence and neglegence all the time and lose...so all the agencies get punished. WDFW has a hiring freeze right now so qualified enforcement officers waiting in the wings cannot be hired.

So no matter which party's idea the fees and taxes are people don't like to pay them because they do not get the value they expect and deserve.

Here's a dandy that my #3 daughter just hit me with this afternoon.....she went to get her car tabs (and title transfer, I believe)...she just moved into King County from Snohomish....sent in her 50$ for the tabs....gets a letter back saying she owes another 50$ for "transit tax"..... btw, her original 50$ wasn't returned nor did she get the tabs

Is it any wonder Tim Eiman is still working?

tim eyeman had some to do with it.. it was a idea, that lead to a initiative that VOTERS approved, and the king county council had to go up taxes for a doomed project like that.. blame council members.. if the politicians and others in this state would of been accountable with the money and not been spending it on worthless stuff, then this sorta thing wouldnt of happened..

<cough>Sound Transit<cough>

Dave....Thanks for revealing another of your areas of expertise...This is a very interesting area to me. I wish I had a copy of the minutes for the commission meeting where the budget was outlined and discussed in detail. I was not there and heard information second hand. Too many questions to take up a page here. But I would be interested to see the bare bones facts. WDFW people seem to think that they are paying for things that have nothing to do with their department. If the costs assessed are based on some kind of percentage of budgets then it would be accurate to say that whatever was in that dept's budget is passed on to WDFW via the percentage.

I don't want to maintain that there is a direct assessment for DSHS lawsuits but I am saying that such things add to the overall expense of state government which by its bloated nature makes spending by all agencies difficult.

If Sammamish is a state park you can buy a yearly pass for $50 that's good at all state parks.

Idaho has a crappy fee proposal on the table right now. They want all non- motorized water craft over 7 feet to be registered. That would cover all drift boats, rafts, kayacks, and most pontoon boats. They want to use the money for search and rescue operations. That would seem like one group of recreational users footing the bill for everyone... Seems like lost hunters and plane crashes in remote areas are the most often "rescued" folks out there.. not sure who figured that pontoon boat guys should pay for that..

A little response from the East coast.

New York State has an annual park pass called the "Empire Passport". Cost is $59.00 a year per vehicle and it gives you unlimited access to any of the State Parks, Marine Parks, Launch sites or Camp Grounds in New York State. Normal day passes cost $7.00 with a boat.

I've always been advocate of user fees. Were the money really goes and how it is spent is completly out of our control.

Yes Tim Eyeman and his drones are to blame. Since he started our taxes have gone up and fewer of them are deductible against a federal return. They have just been spread around in the form of new taxes and use fees.

since washington has no income tax and emphasis is shifted to user fees ,the burden that someone in the lower income levels pays as a percent of their income compared to those that are wealthy is 550%....if you're middle income it's about 350% more than the upper income guys.....the terrible ten states are alabama,florida,illinois,michigan,nevada,pennsylvania,so dakota,tennessee,texas and washington....this according to the institute on taxation and economic policy.....so.....ya get what ya ask for....no one wants an income tax .....