105 



At Americans for Tax Reform, we are not particularly in favor of taxes on anyone. But if 

 there are to be any taxes at all, we prefer not to have taxes which make a mockery of the 

 law. 



The Real Problem with this Proposal 



The most disturbing aspect of "Teaming with Wildlife" is the basic presumption that a 

 federally funded, bureaucratically directed, command-and-control model of 

 environmental regulation is the appropriate way to advance environmental quality in the 

 United States. Aside from a suggestion in the literature that more than 1,000 wildlife 

 species will benefit from the proposal, it is really not clear where the money would go or 

 why we need to adopt this approach as opposed to some other one. 



1 think it is a fair question whether we really get the benefits ascribed to the current excise 

 tax, or whether most of these alleged benefits are in fact due to a wide range of other 

 programs administered by the states, or whether better incentives for property owners are 

 playing a role. Simply spending money on a problem does not make it better, as anyone 

 who has studied spending on the D.C. public schools can attest. 



At this exciting time in Washington, when we are studying many alternatives to 

 traditional bureaucratic methods, I think it is a mistake to perpetuate and even expand a 



