Forest Service SPENDS $15M to collect $15M of fees

Well, just taking one paragraph and going to the source, that's not what it said at all. Differences in accounting treatment are not 'concealing'. No deception is mentioned.

There are several reasonable methods for accounting for commissions. For example, suppose I sell to the public for $5 and for $4 to resellers. That's a 20% commission (or discount) depending on which word you want to use, which is not outside the bounds of reasonable practice.

One way of looking at it is that I got $4 in revenue, I'll report that. Another way is I got $5 and paid a $1 discount (or commission), I'll report both of these numbers. Depending on what you care about in the final numbers, either one is OK, at least in private business, the bottom line is $4 in the bank account. Evidently, government accounting standards require the latter and the Forest Service screwed up and did it the other way.

I find it interesting that many of those who insist that ranchers grazing fees should be higher feel that they should not pay for the maintenance of public lands that they use. Why is that???? When one rides public transportation they pay, when they drive on public roads they pay (gas tax).

And we pay federal income tax every year to cover these kinds of things. Or are you tax-exempt?

FYI, we (in france) do not have any fee to enter the community (state or couty owned) forests or national parks. They are cared by a dedicated administration with not such a bad result, as far as I know.

Boy, you must be pretty steamed at all those logging companies, ranchers, mining companies, tobacco companies, and ag companies of all sorts that get billions and billions of taxpayer money in gov't handouts each year. And the politicians that hand it over to them, too, I'd imagine.

Socialism lives right here, big time, my friend. Some call it corporate welfare.

Judas H. Priest!! Are you really that stupid? The ranchers are making money off of public lands. Duh.

Don't go to Europe if that's how you feel. The whole continent has 'socialistic governments'.

Cheers,

The user fee is being used to hire rangers to keep people out of public land. Kind of stupid and un-American if you think about it. The user fee near me is being used to hire people to watch canoe's come and go. Well we've been doing fine for the last 30 or so years without someone watching.

Andy,

You must be stupid to think that other users of public land are not making money. How about photographers that sell the pics they take of our public lands as one example? When REI sells hiking boots and backcountry equipment that folks use on public lands then they make a little profit also.

The point of making a profit is not the issue. User fees for comstruction and maintenance of improvments to the public land is the issue. Improved campgrounds on public lands have charged fees for years and now other improvements have fees now. There is no charge for acess im the public lands I am familiar with other than the National Parks and not all of them have acess fees. Many of the NP's have user fees in addition to their acess fee. Example, Carlsbad Caverns has a fee to visit the caverns. Yellowstone charges fees for certain ranger led tours. Most NP's charge for overnight camping in improved campgrounds. All of these things cost money and as more and more people need more improvements for their needs more funds are required and it seems logical to me that those demanding the improvements and using them need to pay up.

Nature photographers that actually eat, usually have other jobs. There's almost no money in it compared to ranching.

Duh. But REI doesn't pay the fees, we do!

It really drives me nuts when people refer to developed campgrounds as 'improvements'. I understand there is historical precedent for this in the real estate business, but the implication that development always enhances the land is really presumptuous. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against campgrounds. However, I do feel that the parks, national forests and BLM land in the US is already more than developed enough. Any more development is not improvement, it's destruction.

There is no way to improve what nature has provided.

Not to worry, I have no plans to visit Europe or any where else outside of the US. I spent 20 years flying around the globe, visiting many countries of the world. I was impressed by some and amazed by others but in the end I never found anyplace that came close to the US of A.