The Emmer/Buesgens bill would have placed a constitutional amendment before the voters in November to repeal the 2008 Sportingperson and Arts Community Trust Fund constitutional amendment and rebate any sales tax revenue back to the taxpayers.  (In case you’re wondering who the Sportingpersons are, don’t confuse them with hunters and fishermen.  Hunters and fishermen love the outdoors.  Members of the Sportingperson Community love government control of the outdoors and they really love government handouts for the outdoors.)

Not only is it troubling that Emmer would stage such an emphatic flip flop on the issue of taxes, but the stunt calls into question Emmer’s resolve on related issues like private property rights and the critical chore of ridding Minnesota statutes of all the discredited junk science that drives so much spending and regulation in this state. 

The Emmer bill tearing ceremony was a bit drastic, but it is common practice for legislators to introduce publicity bills that pander to groups of whiny constituents like the Sportingpersons. 

Tom Hackbarth’s HF 1881 is a perfect example.  The bill would create “The Hunters', Anglers', and Trappers' Bill of Rights” and protect your right to wear fur and display game.  And in keeping with the extremist anti-property rights views of the Sportingpersons, the Hackbarth bill would establish a brand spanking new government program “to allow public walk-in access on private property.”  Oh – and spend $20 million to bribe the land owners to go along -- $200,000 of which could be spent on new government workers to administer the program.  Rep. Emmer is a coauthor. 

Talk about falling ass-backwards into money.  The legacy fund isn't the only bucket of hockey pucks for the enviros and the Sportingpersons to juggle. 

Indeed, even the Star Tribune in February raised concerns about all the cash being lavished on The Outside and its go’ment managers: “This is the new money-hustling maze at the State Capitol, where the Legacy constitutional amendment passed by [the stoopid] voters in 2008 is providing hundreds of millions of dollars in fresh revenue for some at a time of shrinking budgets for most others. A lucky few can dip not only into the pot dedicated to the outdoors, clean water, arts and parks and trails initiatives, but may also tap the state's bonding bill for a double dip.”

If only it were limited to double dipping.  State statues are littered with laws that segregate money for the dubious purposes of “protecting” the outdoors. 

Minnesota statutes list the Game and Fish Fund, the Outdoor Heritage Fund, the Lifetime Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund, the Minnesota Conservation Fund, the Reinvest in Minnesota Resources Fund…. No doubt there are more, and, of course, you have to tack on the millions taken from the state’s battered and abused General Fund.

The whole premise behind these funds is that human activity is a kind of cancer that can only be cured by spending millions of tax dollars on the activities of the Protectors - government regulators.   It's all about  "sustainable" this and "critical" that.   And stewardship.  Armed with five-year plans, surveys, studies, "Life Cycle Analysis," sustainable energy demonstrations, the Protectors push regulatory schemes that nearly always result in less land available for use by the Humans.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources controls 5.6 million acres in Minnesota. That’s about ten percent of the surface of this state.  The tragedy is that private citizens would love to own big parcels of that land.  The highest and best use of real property in America isn’t a state park or a Reinvest in Minnesota subsidized set-aside or more damn Critical Habbytat.  The best way to use land is to put it under the control of private citizens. 

Real hunters won’t have a problem with that.  With or without go’ment programs and sell-out politicians who pander to pressure groups,  you can rest assured that life will go on in the mostly wild and uninhabited 55 million acres of prime real estate that is Minnesota.