Trump Admin will ask Congress to eliminate USGS Biological Resources Division

[2buffalo]

You proved that? Where? If you read what I said, I never suggested a wealth tax.

That said “unrealized” gains to purchase something is an oxymoron. That’s income, full stop

See above. Article 16 does not mention taxing assets and provided Article 16 therefore I proved an asset tax is unconstitutional. Pretty straight forward i apologize if it was confusing. I never said you suggested.

Have you heard of home equity loans? You can borrow off your asset without paying taxes. Not that unusual. Neither is an SBLOC loan.

 

[Billinsd]

There ya go, ignoring the point again. You first said it was unconstitutional based on a misinterpretation of what I said.

Prohibition of a wealth tax is not written in the Constitution. According to “The Hill” Conservative group the Supreme Court sets up wealth tax battle for Congress, on 6/24/2024. It states “Supreme Court passed ball back to Congress on wealth tax issue in its decision on Moore v. US, a case that implicated trillions in government revenue and vast swaths of federal law and precedent. The decision carefully avoided questions on taxation raised by case and kept overall structure of US tax system intact 7-2 against petitioners.” “Lawmakers who are happy with status quo don’t need to change anything. Those interested in a wealth tax now know there is skepticism from at least four members, and possibly the majority on taxes that would target either net worth or the appreciation in value of a tax payer’s assets”. By tax attorney Swift Edgar with law firm Cleary Gottlieb.

 

[ZMT]

View attachment 870645
See above. Article 16 does not mention taxing assets and provided Article 16 therefore I proved an asset tax is unconstitutional. Pretty straight forward i apologize if it was confusing. I never said you suggested.

Have you heard of home equity loans? You can borrow off your asset without paying taxes. Not that unusual. Neither is an SBLOC loan.

There’s probably no point to this since you haven’t bothered to read what I’ve said, but yet again, I am not arguing for a wealth tax.

Leveraging stock to buy something then saying those are unrealized gains is nonsensical. It isn’t “unrealized” because you’ve just purchased something with it.

Let’s hear your ingenious interpretation of Eisner v. Macomber. You can claim what billionaires are doing isn’t realization, but we both know the truth

 

[2buffalo]

There’s probably no point to this since you haven’t bothered to read what I’ve said, but yet again, I am not arguing for a wealth tax.

Leveraging stock to buy something then saying those are unrealized gains is nonsensical. It isn’t “unrealized” because you’ve just purchased something with it.

Let’s hear your ingenious interpretation of Eisner v. Macomber. You can claim what billionaires are doing isn’t realization, but we both know the truth

Honest question for you.

You are mad at people with money for following the rules to pay the least amount of tax like everyone else does. But you're not mad at the people who wrote the tax laws?

 

[2buffalo]

Another question.

Your house is ab asset. Should you be taxed on the equity of your home when you use it as collateral?

 

[2buffalo]

Let’s hear your ingenious interpretation of Eisner v. Macomber. You can claim what billionaires are doing isn’t realization, but we both know the truth

I will read it.

 

[ZMT]

Honest question for you.

You are mad at people with money for following the rules to pay the least amount of tax like everyone else does. But you're not mad at the people who wrote the tax laws?

Mad at them? Not at all, I could sit here all day and pretend I’d donate all my money to charity but who actually knows? Lord knows I’d probably get my sheep slam - hardly an altruistic endeavor.

I am mad at the people who wrote the tax laws. They’re accepting bribes to keep laws the same. I’m not arguing about our current situation. I’m stating the fact that there is nowhere in the Constitution that says you can’t tax realized gains. The Supreme Court already ruled on that.

Full ahead forward. Comrade unrealized gains are profits on investments or assets that have increased in value but haven’t been sold yet, by definition. Gains and losses can be realized or unrealized. You can buy more stock with unrealized gains and you don’t pay taxes, correct, and how it should be. When and if you sell the stock you pay taxes. I see comrade, you want the government to tax unrealized gains! So, do people get a credit when the have an unrealized loss? Probably not comrade. I get it… Tyranny is what I call it!

Where are you buying stocks with unrealized gains? That sounds awesome, sign me up.

If you sell a stock and buy another, you still owe for the taxable portion of the stock you sold. If not, I’m in the wrong field.

To address the second part, the gains/loss of the stock prior to a purchase have no relation to the actual taxation that people are proposing - only the current value at the time they leveraged that stock to purchase something

 

[ZMT]

I will read it.

I appreciate it and despite my attitude so far, for whatever it’s worth I want to take a chance to apologize for my phrasing.

Simply having a different opinion doesn’t deserve vitriol, so my apologies for my part creating it in the conversation

 

[Billinsd]

I am mad at the people who wrote the tax laws. They’re accepting bribes to keep laws the same. I’m not arguing about our current situation. I’m stating the fact that there is nowhere in the Constitution that says you can’t tax realized gains. The Supreme Court already ruled on that.

I’m mad about Woodrow Wilson for the Federal Income tax and the federal reserve. Who’s accepting bribes? Got any proof, lol, it’s possible. It isn’t written anywhere in the Constitution that you can’t tax realized gains. It isn’t Constitutional because the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on it. They passed it back to Congress and 4 of the 9 judges, maybe a majority of judges are skeptical of it. Therefore I say it’s unconstitutional until it is tried and proved Constitutional by the Supreme Court. Are you for or against taxing unrealized gains?

 

[menhaden_man]

Grand coulee dam does half of that without the rest of reclamation....add in the rest of projects and let me know how it adds up.

BPA = generation, BOR = irrigation, USACE = navigation. What could go wrong?

 

[Wrench]

To be fair, bpa is just transmission. Bor is the generation.

 

[menhaden_man]

Annual budget of DOI in 2023 was $14.5 Billion. BLM returned to treasury ~$8 billion. That is after takeoffs. The $20-30 Billion you are referencing was over a decade ago.

BLM gets money from Grazing leases, recreation, timber sales, etc (something like $700-800 million. These are basically subsidies with how cheap they are, especially grazing fees.

BLM also gets tons of money through extraction. Here is a link for the ONRR (office of national resource revenue). This includes offshore extraction.

Edit: Below is the change in grazing fees BLM charges over time. 2025 is same as 2019, $1.35 per AUM. That $2.31 in 1981 is worth ~$8.50-9 now considering 2-3% annual inflation. We could increase our grazing fees collected by multiples by just increasing the fee by inflation. Further, we are ~5% the cost of private land lease rates. Things to ponder

View attachment 870507

But BLM doesn’t fund DOI, correct? It’s a bureau within DOI and receives its budget through congressional appropriations. Revenue from BLM activities goes to the U.S. Treasury, not back to DOI. The ~$8B ONRR figure includes offshore and tribal revenues, not just BLM. https://www.onrr.gov

 

[menhaden_man]

To be fair, bpa is just transmission. Bor is the generation.

Upstream of Wells or Idaho Power, downstream is USACE.

It was just a common joke I used to hear from the old timers when I worked out there. BOR and USACE definitely make sure the turbines spin.

 

[elkhunter505]

Wait!!! What is the USGS? It’s the United States GEOLOGICAL survey. Nothing biological sounding to me. It’s or was the highest regarded federal agency regarding geology, like NASA is to space. I never heard of this biological resource division? 1996!! LOL get rid of it. Why can’t US Fish and Wildlife do what the biological division does, or does it? Nothing to see here folks. Good grief.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is primarily focused on management, policy, and the on the ground work when it comes to implementing the research that is done by the USGS. They serve two relatively distinct roles with USFWS primarily being a management agency while USGS is a research agency.

 

[Gila]

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is primarily focused on management, policy, and the on the ground work when it comes to implementing the research that is done by the USGS. They serve two relatively distinct roles with USFWS primarily being a management agency while USGS is a research agency.

The Landsat program is the money maker for the USGS.

 

[elkhunter505]

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is primarily focused on management, policy, and the on the ground work when it comes to implementing the research that is done by the USGS. They serve two relatively distinct roles with USFWS primarily being a management agency while USGS is a research agency.

And I’d argue this is why the USGS is highly thought of across this thread even by those who are supporting major cuts. Their lack of politics and policy allows for their work to be grounded fully within science with the only policy and politics coming from the funding source. If we were to fold those people into the USFWS, it is more likely that politics will have an impact on the science and the conclusions made.

 

[cubdriver84d]

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is primarily focused on management, policy, and the on the ground work when it comes to implementing the research that is done by the USGS. They serve two relatively distinct roles with USFWS primarily being a management agency while USGS is a research agency.

This is a key distinction that sets USGS apart. It is purely a science agency that operates to fill science and information requests made by other agencies that need the information to make management decisions. USGS research has to adhere to its strict Fundamental Science Practices, which helps ensure that the work is as transparent and unbiased as possible and ultimately allows the government to formally endorse it as official US government work. This is in contrast to science products that other agencies produce. For example, any scientific paper that a biologist at USFWS writes has to have a disclaimer in it somewhere that states “the views presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the USFWS” or something like that. That is not to say that USGS work is necessarily better or higher quality than that of other agencies, just that it is held to a higher standard.

 

[S.Clancy]

But BLM doesn’t fund DOI, correct? It’s a bureau within DOI and receives its budget through congressional appropriations. Revenue from BLM activities goes to the U.S. Treasury, not back to DOI. The ~$8B ONRR figure includes offshore and tribal revenues, not just BLM. https://www.onrr.gov

No, ONRR is broken down into Tribal, onshore and offshore. Onshore is BLM, which in 2024 was over $8 billion. I just realized I didn't link that (https://revenuedata.doi.gov/). You can see the breakdown there.

You are right, all agencies are appropriated money by Congress whenever they feel like actually passing a budget (which is almost never). My point was some (few) departments are at minimum budget neutral, or like DOI, positive due in large part to BLM, Bureau of Rec etc.

 

[elkhunter505]

This is a key distinction that sets USGS apart. It is purely a science agency that operates to fill science and information requests made by other agencies that need the information to make management decisions. USGS research has to adhere to its strict Fundamental Science Practices, which helps ensure that the work is as transparent and unbiased as possible and ultimately allows the government to formally endorse it as official US government work. This is in contrast to science products that other agencies produce. For example, any scientific paper that a biologist at USFWS writes has to have a disclaimer in it somewhere that states “the views presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the USFWS” or something like that. That is not to say that USGS work is necessarily better or higher quality than that of other agencies, just that it is held to a higher standard.

Just for transparency sake, we have to do that as well when we publish papers. It just only remains on the paper during the peer review process. Not necessarily sure why but it is a requirement for us as well. The lack of any policy or politics in the USGS is what makes it so great by comparison to some places, but we definitely still have some odd hoops we have to jump through. We have to have the full disclaimer when going through peer review and then someone as USGS reviews it after the first round of peer review and then allows us to remove the full disclaimer.

 

[CMP70306]

There are ways to tax assets and close loopholes without screwing over the middle and lower class. But sure keep defending people that can buy out our entire government.

And the original Revenue Act of 1913 only put a 1% tax on income above $3,000 (roughly $97,000 today) that only affected 3% of the population at the time. How’s that bullshit working out for us now?

All of the billionaires in the country are only worth a total of $5.6 trillion which means if you liquidated everything they own it would only pay off about 15% of the deficit. Or considering the government spent $6.4 Trillion in 2022 it would fund the government for a bit over 10 months. Then of course there is that fact that the majority of their wealth is tied up in stocks and if you forced them to sell it would crash the market dragging everyone down with it. But since they can’t take all of their money they will continue moving down the ladder and it only takes one million in assets to be just outside of the top 5%. Here in my area all it takes is a paid off house and a reasonable 401K to hit 1 million in assets on paper.

This thread, this forum is about scientific fish and wildlife management required to maintain hunting and sport-fishing opportunity. I won’t bite on your deflection.

Those wind farms are absolutely a huge issue to sport fishermen on the east coast as the plan is to put them directly between shore and the offshore canyons that we typically fish at. In addition to the ecological impact of setting them up there is the issue of what happens when one comes apart like it did in New England and now you have giant chunks of partially submerged debris littering the water way. Not to mention the navigational issues arising from sticking hundreds of giant polls in the water in a place where fisherman regularly travel in the dark to reach the fishing grounds.

Then there is the significant possibility that they could put an exclusion zone around the wind farms. If such an exclusion zone was enacted there are significant portions of the offshore fishing grounds that would be effectively cut off or limited to only the largest boats with the range to get to them.

Take for example the Hudson Canyon, from our home port it would normally be a 100 mile run and take a bit over 3 hours to get there. If we had to navigate around the wind farms it would add over 60 miles each way adding an additional 4 hours to our total travel time. That effectively shuts down any option for a day trip for us and makes it impossible for many boats to actually reach the canyon in the first place.