Everyone is feeling the financial crunch, including state governments. Times are tough, but some politicians haven't learned that they cannot balance the budget on the backs of hunters. Hunters pay an 11 percent federal excise tax on hunting equipment, and anglers pay a similar tax on fishing tackle.

Most hunters and fishermen do not complain about paying these taxes, because the monies go into supporting their activities. Within limits, tax revenues gathered off the sales of hunting and fishing gear are returned to state wildlife agencies as a 3-to-1 match to be used for law enforcement, hunter education, and various aspects of wildlife and fish management. Hunting and fishing license monies are used for the match to get these federal monies. This is a very good system that literally keeps every state fish and wildlife agency running.

There is one very important catch here for those who want to "steal" or "borrow" license monies. The laws that created the federal excise taxes clearly state that license revenues cannot be used for anything except wildlife and fish management, and if it is "borrowed" or "taken" by state politicians, the state will lose the federal excise tax, and they will lose it forever or until all license monies are repaid.

This seems quite clear, but now that states are in financial trouble, some governors have forgotten the law. To some who are looking for an easy fix to their states' financial problems, money paid for hunting and fishing licenses looks very inviting.

That brings us to today. Clearly, some politicians don't know, or don't want to know, about the restrictions placed on states regarding the use of license revenues. In South Dakota, for example, House Bill 1002 would take $1 from every hunting and fishing license sold and use it for county road repair. (Note: Hunters and anglers already pay the same gasoline taxes that all other citizens pay for road repair. Can you say double dipping?)

Of course, the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks strongly opposes this bill because that agency receives $10 million each year in federal excise taxes. If the state government grabs $1 million of the money paid for fishing and hunting licenses and channels it into road repair, Game, Fish and Parks will lose $3 million -- remember, it's a 3-to-1 match of federal-to-state dollars -- desperately needed to maintain fish and wildlife management programs.

Lest anyone think that's a blow just to programs that support hunting and fishing, think again. It's just as crippling to the management of endangered and non-game species, to hunter education, to wildlife and fish research, to habitat acquisition and improvement for all fish and wildlife. Worse yet, unless this trend is stopped now, Game, Fish and Parks could lose all $10 million of its federal excise taxes next year, the year after that… and on and on.

The political problems in Illinois are no big secret -- one governor impeached recently, and the previous governor in jail for corruption. Well, that's not the end of it. Illinois is another state that has tried to balance its state budget on the shoulders of the state's hunters and anglers. In the fall of 2008, state government took $9.25 million of hunting and fishing license monies to cover budget shortfalls.