Welcome!

My business is to provide people the opportunity to sample the exciting and challenging fishing available at the southern end of Lake Michigan. This page is dedicated to showing a bit of the behind-the-scenes work it takes to do that and to highlight the trips and fun my customers are able to experience.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

HOPE AND TAXES

A recent Princeton University study showed that approximately one-third of all jobs in the USA currently need some sort of government permit, licensing or registration to perform. What a jobs killer!

Is that a good thing? You be the judge.

It could be argued that licensing medical doctors is necessary. (But why are there crummy doctors?) I don’t really care if my barber is licensed or not. If I get a chop-job from one guy, I’ll go to a different one next time.

Included in the category of “highly regulated jobs” is running a charter boat.

There’s the coast guard license, boat registrations, boat inspections, marina registrations, guide licenses - in Illinois one needs both a state charter captain’s license as well a passenger boat license.

Under the guise of “public safety” and “resource management” each of these licenses or registrations come with an administrative “fee” attached. (Administrative fee is a government word for TAX.) With the check shown in this picture I now have my “taxes” paid for 2012.

I hope my customers feel safer knowing I have current “stickers” on my boat instead
of those from last year or the year before. I hope those who jiggle the numbers when planning future management strategies for Lake Michigan be sure to incorporate the fish and customer counts I have to submit each month. I hope the government bureaucrats who are the recipients of the checks I write to be able to take people fishing each year spend my money wisely. I hope every day I spend on the lake this year features bright skies, light wind
s and hungry fish.

What do you think of my hopes coming true?

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