Sports

Federal overspending puts athletes’ funds at risk

For years, hunters and fishermen have been paying additional excise taxes on sporting equipment (guns, ammunition, boats, boat engines, etc.) earmarked for two funds distributed to state wildlife agencies.

The Pittman-Robertson Fund (also called the Federal Aid for Wildlife Restoration Act) dates back to 1937 and its money has been used for wildlife conservation. The Dingell-Johnson Fund (also known as the Federal Sport Fishing Aid Restoration Act) dates back to 1950 and its spending supports fishing.

But as sportsmen have learned, state legislatures, backed against the wall by deficit spending, often try to grab any source of revenue. No legislature has successfully moved a state’s hunting and fishing fees into a general fund, and the DJ and public relations funds have remained intact.

But there is a movement afoot by politicians in Washington, DC, to get their hands on the money from PR and DJs, away from athletes.

The threat is called “hijacking.” Kidnapping is just a fancy description of taking money meant for a specific task and spending it on something else; in this case, the athletes’ funds could be used to reduce the federal deficit.

Athletes should be concerned about looming automatic federal budget cuts, scheduled to take effect in January 2013. Athletes and states face DJ and public relations cuts because the Obama administration, Senate and House of Representatives they have not agreed on a federal budget. nor did he pass bills to finance the government, while reducing the deficit. Without congressional action to pass budget and spending bills after the November 2012 federal election, large automatic funding cuts will ensue in 2013.

Sequestering PR and DJ to reduce the deficit would reduce refunds of excise taxes and license fees, generated by sportsmen, to state hunting and fishing agencies. The hijacking of these funds could be an unintended and disastrous consequence.

PR and DJ taxes—about $31 million annually for PR and $34 million for DJ—go to just these two funds, and the money can be spent only on programs that benefit hunting and fishing.

These funds were purposely designed to be restricted to ensure that the money was not used to pave roads, build prisons, support Social Security, the Department of Defense, or any other federal program. Only the amount of tax revenue that actually goes into each fund can be spent: no money is borrowed to pay for PR or DJ projects and no other federal tax revenue supports these projects.

Because expenses cannot exceed revenue, PR and DJ also do not contribute to overall spending or contribute to the deficit.

The Office of Management and Budget (part of the White House) has sole authority to decide which federal programs are subject to sequestration. The OMB has interpreted the 2011 budget law to mean that DJ and public relations funds are “non-exempt discretionary expenses” and will be garnished. This action, scheduled for January 2013, will reduce the amount of DJ and public relations funds available for hunting and fishing programs by $31 million and $34 million, respectively. In total, $65 million of dedicated hunter/fisherman taxes will be garnished and will not be available for DJ and public relations programs.

State fish and game agencies and others, including the USA Sportsmen’s Alliance, have argued that the special nature of these dedicated funds means they should not be subject to sequestration. Since these funds come from special user taxes and the monies can be used only for hunting and fishing programs, and do not contribute to the deficit, they should be exempt from sequestration cuts.

So far, the White House is not listening. Unless the White House and OMB relent, or the sequestration is averted because the Senate and House agree to a new comprehensive budget and spending bills between now and January, $65 million of PR/DJ funds will not be distributed to the state fish and game agencies for fish and game programs, which is 100 percent of annual PR/DJ funding.

This isn’t the first time Congress has tried to get money from PR/DJs. In the 1980s, Congress and the Reagan Administration agreed to a similar program of automatic budget cuts called Gramm-Rudman. Back then, OMB also decided that the cuts would apply to public relations and DJs, but athletes stood up and objected.

They were able to persuade key members of Congress to end the plan, and the OMB and the Reagan White House relented while the DJ and PR-funded hunt and fish programs remained intact.

Critics of the current DJ and PR fund hijacking scheme said the scheme made no sense in 1986 and makes no sense today.

If the White House, WBO and the Department of the Interior don’t listen, sports groups will take the battle to the Capitol and ask the Senate and House to protect sports dollars.

Another concern is that OMB will sequester PR/DJ funds and allow those revenues to grow to $100 million or more, and then may try to transfer the hunting and angling equipment tax dollars to other federal programs. , although such a decision would violate federal law.

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