Letters | 3-20-14

Permits proposal is just another tax

Permits proposal is just another tax

West Hawaii Today’s March 18 front page story of “… permits for all noncommercial fishermen” has put a boulder in my sandal.

You can’t turn around without the political extortionists finding another way to tax us, and yes, that’s what a fishing license is, no different than a weight tax on vehicles or a park fee. Twisting and inventing names doesn’t change what it is. It’s being taxed to use the ocean, to use a vehicle, to use the park.

“What can we tax next?” is the mantra. It’s death by a thousand cuts. “A little tax here, a little tax there … they won’t even notice.” You’ll notice when it’s time to vote. We’ll be licking our wounds, and I won’t care what you’ll be doing.

And when it comes to targeting the visitor to trick them from every cent you can pinch, you’re slaughtering the “golden calf.” One day they won’t come. The migration of our own residents has been ongoing for a long time. The general excise pyramid tax taxes every transaction of doing business, including the transactions on food, medicine, services and even rent.

I’ll trash all mailed pulp pamphlets from any extortionist that exults in their trivial feel-good projects that saved a three-eyed nano slug from extinction in some remote weed patch where the new judicial building was to be built.

The ancient Hawaiian’s iwi are rattling right now. How dare someone charge someone to use the ocean. I liken it to taxing the use of a church. I receive nourishment for my soul within the walls of the church. I receive nourishment for my body and soul within the waters of the sea.

If you haven’t seen the movie “Network,” see it. “Stick your head out the window and holler, ‘I’m so damn mad, and I’m not going to take it anymore.’”

Dennis L. Lawson

Kalaoa