A lawsuit challenging the backcountry user fee assessed at Great Smoky Mountains National Park can proceed, a federal judge has ruled.
Although Judge Joseph M. Hood rejected portions of the lawsuit brought by Southern Forest Watch, Inc., against the Interior Department and the National Park Service, he kept intact the group's challenge to the $4 per night per person fee for backcountry travelers in the national park.
The backcountry fee, with a $20 per person cap per trip, took effect in February 2013. It is intended by park officials to help streamline and improve the backcountry permitting process and heighten the presence of rangers in the backcountry.
In suing to overturn the fee, Southern Forest Watch contends not only that the fee isn't merited, but draws on both Park Service history and mandates to contend the agency is precluded from charging the $4 per person per night fee.
While Judge Hood dismissed the group's challenge of the online registration system the park put in effect, saying the plaintiffs had failed to show they were injured by the system, he ruled they could challenge the nightly fees. In doing so, he rejected the government's claim that the Park Service enjoyed sovereign immunity in creating and implementing the reservation system and fee structure.
"Plaintiffs may challenge the superintendent’s decision to implement the backpacker registration fee under the APA, and this Court will have jurisdiction," Judge Hood ruled.
No date for the challenge was immediately set.
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Not true ec, 30 years ago was 1984, so look at 1982 on chart; 106,000 was top of chart paying 50% tax, equiv. to 199K in 2011 dollars and there was 14 brackets. Today you need to earn almost double to reach top bracket that is 39.6%(39.6% is less than 50) And when you go back to when the top bracket had to make millions, the rate was as high as 90%. It is no where near that now and I agree it does not need to be.
Sorry, in at least the last 27 years. 1987 38.5% was the top tax bracket.
BTW go back to 1934 and you would have to have made the equivalent of $1 mil to be taxed at our current 39.6% top bracket. Now, only $400k. Again, we are nowhere near historical lows in terms of tax rates.
ecbuck that only effects a small number of people, because all other brackets are lower. And if you look at effective tax rates they are near a low since WW2
The small number (1%) that pay 38% of all personal income taxes. The small number that is responsible for huge investments, massive hiring, overwhelming philanthropy.
How do you figure?
ecbuck, if you look at the same page as the chart, and go to "effective tax rate" the top 1% average 20.6% effective tax rate.They really do not pay 39% after deductions. And this average for all tax payers combined has gone down since WW2.
ec, This article shows a good example also;
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/29/barack-ob...
Of course they dont pay 39 percent. That is the top marginal tax rate . It is the marginal tax rate that controls incremental economic activity. The more your next dollar is taxed the less you are llikely to try to earn it.
Ps please give more details on where this chart showing effective rates is located.
Thank you Kurt for the commentary. I am not an economist, certainly not an expert, but I do know the neo-liberal economic philosophy really took hold with President Reagan, Milton Friedman ( a pupil of Friedrick Hydeck) was his top economic advisor, gained tremendous traction with President Clinton with his appointment of Alan Greenspan to head the Fed and Robert Rubin as Treasury Secretary, and was put on steroids by President Bush (2). It is an interesting debate, and quite complicated involving the free trade agreements, historically low tax rates, loss of the manufacturing base of the country which supported good paying jobs to many people, etc. There are those economists that claim the boom and bust cycles of the 1890s. 1920s, and 2007 were primarily caused by these low tax rates, resulting in the real estate and wall street financial manipulations that are causing so many problems right now. Many predict another bubble burst in the near future. In the 1960s, manufacturing accounted for about 1/3 of GNP, now it is 1/10th. Financial Institutions accounted for a 1/10, now it is over 50%. I know many have bought into this free wheeling capitalistic "Free Market" theory, and some of them are doing very well, thank you. They do not have to be concerned with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Tillman Act, the Glass-Steagall Act and so many other legislative safeguards built in by both Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. In any case, for the median income groups, the majority of us, we are not doing to well, we can see it daily in the concentration of wealth of the country, the corporate monopolies, the amazing amounts of money being poured into political campaigns, the for profit medical community, the homeless on all our street corners, well at least you can it here in California. We can also see it in our public infrastructure, roads falling apart, schools in disrepair, local, state and federal agencies being underfunded, freeways clogged, etc. . History will judge, but I do not buy any of the neo-liberal economic agenda, it simply does not work for the benefit of the majority of citizens. In fact even Alan Greenspan is having second thoughts.
It is a sad state of affairs when the only governing philosophy the last 30 years for our country is the President Calvin Coolidge motto, "what is good for business is good for America".