When we pushed back on the latest license-fees idea, one of the things that amused me were the many hams arguing in favor of paying fees and even higher fees. They argued it was a good thing, so I asked if they had been voluntarily sending money to the government for the reasons they'd outlined. No responses were forthcoming.

I can certainly appreciate the arguments pro and con, but people passionately arguing in favor of higher prices, fees, or taxes always seems a little suspect.

Here in my state, for example, we had a debate about adding and increasing fees for use of state parks. When I pointed out that higher cost of park usage would tend to discourage people of lower-income brackets from going in the parks, there were those who open said that was a good result. The same happened a couple times during the ham radio license fee discussions. I remember a guys saying things along the lines of, "If you can't afford those fees, you should not be in the hobby."

Steve WD8DAS

sbjohnston@aol.com
http://www.wd8das.net/

http://af4k-crystals.com

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