First, with all due respect CaptTB (and I have an immense amount of respect for you), I believe many of your statements are sarcastic in that post at the top of page 2. However, it's difficult to figure out which ones are the sarcasm and which ones are the facts. It would be helpful to leave out the sarcasm. I'm not trying to be difficult or critical. I just find your post to be confusing...and I truly want to understand.
With that said, I find the whole program to be a slippery slope. If I understand correctly, there is some amount of poundage available to catch to help generate research dollars by some non-government agency. That non-government agency chose to incentivize people to "buy" that poundage by making it available during a period of time where they would not normally be allowed to keep fluke. In order for this to work, the government had to make the poundage available to the program and make available special permits to those same people who "bought" the poundage.
If I understand correctly, then I really do think that's a slippery slope. Albeit for what we all believe is the correct cause, THIS TIME. I wonder if the program didn't exist, would there be a larger poundage allocated to all? If not, then what happened is that the total available catch is reduced to allow for this program. That's a tax in my book, no matter how you feel about how those funds are used.
Then again, I find this all very confusing and may be completely wrong in what I just wrote.
