This thought popped into my head earlier today and I figured I would pose the question and get everyone else's incite on it. Life time hunting licence/tags for Washington residents. I know Idaho and several other state offer them and I can't really see a downside to them as a hunter or too the government trying to get more money. As I mentioned I just thought up the idea this morning so I haven't have had a chance to think about all of the options but here is what I have so far:
Life time licence would cost 10x (just made up this number) current single year licence. You could pick either just deer, elk, or one of the different combos they currently offer. For deer and elk you would still have to pick weapon choice and for elk east or west each year
Only valid years you are a Washington State resident. If you purchase it and move out of state you no longer get automatic tags each year. I do think you should get a discount from the out of state rates though, maybe you have to pay the current in state rates? If you later move back to the state you will start getting your tags again.
Special permit fees are still year by year and must be purchased and submitted the same way they are now.
I haven't really looked into how other states do it, but it could be modeled after some of the other successful programs.
I know one of the arguments will be that the state will never do it because they can't keep gouging us each year for tag fees. If you look at the inverse of it though that not the entire hunting population will buy life time tag so they will still get an annual cash flow. Couple that with special permit fees and there will still be income. Additionally each year new people will still be buying life time licences which will help boost revenue. Plus, out of the people that buy the life time licence at least a portion of them will either stop hunting, move out of state, or pass away before they reach the point where the tags basically become free. That would basically be free money to the state.
For the hunter they wouldn't have to worry about annual price increases or having to go out and purchase the tags every year. And if they stayed in Washington and hunted for enough years their tags would basically be free.
Whats everyone else's thoughts on this idea? Different things you would like to see? You could do the same thing for fishing licences as well.
