Friday, July 15, 2011

Biting the Hand That Feeds Them


The folks at Politico say the Republican leadership in Congress appears to be in trouble with a core constituency. Darren Samuelsohn writes:

House Republicans fighting the Obama administration’s environmental agenda are finding themselves making decisions that threaten the party’s carefully nourished relationship with the hook and bullet crowd.

Anglers and hunters once courted by President George W. Bush don’t like what they’re seeing in the GOP’s mad dash to cut spending and have made their feelings clear in meetings this month with top aides to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

As the Republican leaders no doubt know, this is not a crowd to mess with. The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation estimates that nearly eight in 10 hunters always vote in presidential elections, while six in 10 go to the polls in off years....

... House Republicans may have poisoned the well with their austere spending strategy, including the fiscal 2012 interior and environment spending bill that is on track for approval Tuesday in the Appropriations Committee

Under the legislation, the Interior Department’s overall budget would fall $720 million from fiscal 2011. A popular land and water conservation fund would see a more than 80 percent cut to $62 million, while funding for the North American Wetlands Conservation Act would get a 47 percent reduction to $20 million. State Wildlife Grants would also be cut 64 percent to $22 million....

Leaders from Ducks Unlimited, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies met last week with top aides for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House Office of Management and Budget.

In their presentations, they cited the benefits that come with wildlife conservation, including flood control and better water quality. Federal dollars are also leveraged by upward of five to one with private and state money. Lawmakers also need to be reminded that the nation’s estimated 40 million sportsmen of voting age pay billions of dollars every year in state and federal taxes through their licenses and equipment purchases.

I am not too surprised that the new leadership in the GOP does not "get it" when it comes to hook-and-bullet conservation.

Most of the new members of Congress, and too many of the the old, are pretty far removed from the GOP and Democratic parties of our father's era.

These folks are not about square corners, full iceboxes, and raking their own leaves in the Fall.

This is the shiny-shoe set of the type that can be found selling Toyotas on corner lots in small towns, or running jewelry stores or bad restaurants in slightly run-down local malls. Or worse, they are ego-besotted lawyers -- the folks that wanted so desperately to be president of their high school class and yearbook manager too. These are not "bad" people, but I am not sure they are people you should be trusting your wallet with either. These folks are promoters, in the worst sense of that word.

As for hunting and fishing, they generally do not know very much about it.

Do you think John Boehner actually hunts or fishes? Nope. He golfs, which at least puts him outdoors but his skin color is a strange orange hue that has been described as "not found in nature." He lives in a tanning bed? Count on it, and disregard whatever he says on the matter!

How about Eric Cantor? You think he has spent even one hour catching crawdads in the creeks of his home state of Virginia? Not a chance. This is a professional politician from Richmond, with a closet full of custom suits and carefully chosen ties. His obsession is not service, but self.

For these folks, America's farms, forests, and streams are little more than a rumor. Conservation investments? How could they possibly pay either an economic or political dividend? They have no idea. 
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