SaveWashingtonPets.Org

[hammerhead]

This bill is up again please read and get this bill passed. this will help low income people get their dogs and cats spayed and neutered.

F.C.A.T.

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[HunterG]

Thank you for your continued devotion to helping animals in need. I respect what you do and will definitely look it over and talk it up at work and elsewhere.

Need any volunteers to come give hugs to your brood?

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[justcuz]

Yes!!! Please, please visit the site to see how a minimal ($.03/lb.) fee on pet food could make a HUGE impact on pet overpopulation in Washington. Read about how other states have adopted similar spay/neuter assistance programs, some decreasing shelter euthanasia by 75%. Saving lives is reason enough, but in a time when animal care and control budgets are being slashed – or in some cases eliminated – this could also bring considerable financial savings. Go to http://www.savewashingtonpets.org , sign up for their newsletter, and find out how you can tell our legislators that you want to be part of the solution. Too many don’t even know this bill is being considered.

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[JoB]

thanks for the heads up…

this seems sensible

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[hammerhead]

as for the hugs are you kidding me YES can’t say YES enough. call me when you would be interested in coming over

206-427-6454

Pamela

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[ALS]

Thanks for posting!

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[waterworld]

I have no quarrel with the proposition that increased spaying and neutering will reduce the population of feral and unwanted pets. I’m not sure that I can support a bill like this one, though. A 3% tax is not insignificant, and the tax burden will fall on pet owners — including the low income pet owners who apparently cannot afford to get their pets spayed and neutered. The bill will generate over $11 million in revenues for the state each year, a significant portion of which will be spent on two new government employees to administer the program and program-related overhead.

Also, I’m concerned about the scope of “low income” families included in the law. As written, a King County resident making in the neighborhood of $52,000 would qualify for a nearly-free spay or neuter. I guess I think that if you can’t afford to spay or neuter, you shouldn’t take on the responsibilities of ownership. Beyond the spaying and neutering, there’s the cost of feeding and caring for the pet and the cost of routine and emergency veterinary services. It’s one thing to have a program to spay and neuter feral animals to reduce overpopulation, but it’s another thing altogether to subsidize one expense for people who may not be able to afford the long-term costs of owning a pet.

My real concern, though, is a bit different. The entire economy is struggling, and we are feeling the effects all over: our schools are insufficiently funded and education is suffering; our criminal justice system is underfunded, leading to both wrongful convictions of the innocent and diminished resources for crime prevention; our transportation woes are legion; bridges and dams are failing due to insufficient maintenance; our mental health system has failed thousands of people; and we have (as of early 2007) about 22,000 homeless people in the state. There are many issues of pressing importance to address, and I don’t expect us all to agree on them. Despite my love of animals, this mission, funded with a new tax, is probably not one that would be on my personal list of priorities.

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[hammerhead]

You are spending more tax payers money KILLING cats and dogs at the local shelters. I deal with low income people and more recently a homeless guy. I usually get the food and meds they need for the cats. So that does not burden tax payers at all such at you. Or otherwise those cats would be killed for NO reason. I have helped a local lady, she would qualify as low income and she is doing just fine. With the medical benefits that pets can offer ie, lower blood pressure ect it generally does NOT put a burden on tax payers to support low income people take care of there pets.

If you don’t own a pet then this tax will not affect you. I support the tax on soda pops, I don’t care I don’t drink soda pops so it doesn’t affect me.

As for pet owners who cant afford emergency care well their animal gets put down that doesn’t come out of tax payers money unless they take to the shelter because they don’t have the balls to do it themselves.

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[funkietoo]

For those that don’t spay/neuter their pets, cost is the number one reason. In the Seattle Area it can easily cost $200 to spay a cat/$100 to neuter; depending on the size of the dog it can be $100 – $400. There are lower priced spay/neuter services, but transportation, access and knowledge of such services can be road blocks.

In the long run, it is cheaper (and more humane) to help defray the cost of spay/neuter for those that can’t afford the upfront cost. It costs millions of dollars a year to shelter animals in Washington. Spay/Neuter is the number one way to effectively reduce the number of animals entering our shelters as there will be less kittens and puppies; reduced dog bite incidents; and less animals relinquished for behavior problems.

Plus, helping people take care of, and keep their pets is providing Human and Social Services. We know that animals provide comfort and health benefits to people. There are so many animals that need loving homes and many people that are financially restricted/lower income that love animals–why not help both stay together?

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[JoB]

waterworld..

a neutered pet doesn’t reproduce and add to the public cost of dealing with cat and dog over-population.

I find it difficult to buy your premise that this tax puts an undue burden on those with lower incomes…

My guess is that those who are low income can pony up for an extra 30 cents on a ten dollar bag of pet food a lot faster than they can pony up $100 to $300 for the cost of neutering…

and that they can more easily pay the 3% on pet food than pay the cost of feeding and caring for the litters of pets their un-neutered pets produce…

so this really has nothing to do with the financial impact on poor people.. does it?

Would you vote for this tax if it granted free neuters to all pet owners or do you just balk at spending public dollars on anything that benefits actual people versus that which benefits business?

A tax paid for by pet owners to control the overflowing numbers of abandoned and unwanted pets in our animal control shelters makes perfect cents.

disclaimer..

the misuse of the word cents was intentional

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[waterworld]

I don’t believe I argued that the tax places an undue burden on low income pet owners, although I did want to note that they are included in the group who will feel the effects of the tax. And I certainly didn’t say anything to suggest a preference for benefitting businesses over people. Where you got that is a mystery to me. (Although now that you mention it, this tax would benefit businesses: veterinarians, who are guaranteed payment at 80% of the usual and customary rate for the service, plus the co-pay.)

Mostly I was trying to convey that among the many things we all should be paying for, such as improvements in education, transportation, housing, and care for people in need, this particular issue doesn’t stand out as the most pressing. I am more concerned about putting a roof over the head of the actual homeless guy than about whether he can get his cat spayed for $10.

I’m also not sure I would support any new tax without a more clearly defined indication of its core purpose. Is the mission here reducing the number of animals killed in shelters? Is it reducing the number of feral animals in general? Or is it providing spaying and neutering services to low income families? If the mission is one of the first two things, then I think a more appropriate solution would be increasing expenditures from the general fund to cover the cost of spaying and neutering all feral and stray animals. If additional tax revenue is necessary, I would prefer to see it imposed through increased licensing fees than by taxing pet food, because a new tax on pet food requires two new government jobs and additional overhead.

If the mission is to provide spay and neuter services for low income households, then I’m not sure I support a tax on pet food to do that. Hammerhead pointed out on another thread that she can direct folks to good clinics that provide these services for under $50. You don’t have to pay $200 for spaying or neutering. If the services are out there already, I wouldn’t impose a new tax to shift the cost.

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[JoB]

waterworld

increasing expenditures from the general fund to cover spaying and neutering would take dollars directly from putting a roof over the head of a homeless man… the proposed tax on pet food would not. It would only be paid by pet owners.

i would pay an increased license fee dedicated to pet neutering … but i am not so sure that the rest of the population would do so.

a small increase in the cost of pet food is a lot easier to stomach than having to pay increased licensing fees… that solution was so politically unpopular that it was not proposed.

this one was and would go a long way towards creating a solution for the overpopulation of dogs and cats.

there is no perfect solution and if you wait for one… you do nothing…

when the bag fee was shot down we still didn’t get collection barrels for plastic bags… plastic bags still litter our streets and individual bags still clog the recycling machinery.. the problem didn’t go away… but now we have no solution… except possibly the increased recycling fees that are coming…

instead of those who use the plastic bags paying for the privilege, we will all pay in increased fees.

right now we pay out of the general fund for euthanizing the dogs and cats that you don’t want to pay to neuter. everyone pays, not just dog or cat owners.

clearly, a non-solution is not the answer… especially since the country decided that shelters were not a priority for general fund spending.

I have seen the results of cutting spending to animal control other places.. great packs of feral cats and dogs.. with the dogs becoming increasingly aggressive when food supplies dwindle… imagine great packs of dogs occupying your local parks… would you think any solution was better than none then?

As for the availability of low cost neutering… there is a huge difference between hammerhead’s ability to connect individuals with low cost neutering and availability for the general public.

hammerhead knows that more than most. If she thought this was an unnecessary expenditure, she wouldn’t have encouraged us all to lobby our elected representatives.. would she?

Personally, i would like to see pet neutering a license requirement for all pet owners except those holding a license to breed… That would take care of the pet overpopulation problem and regulate breeders.

Would that be a better alternative for you? somehow.. i am betting not.

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[waterworld]

JoB — I would absolutely support imposing a spay/neuter requirement for all pet owners other than those with licenses to breed. That avoids a regressive tax and would not require additional bureaucracy to administer. I think that’s vastly preferable to the tax approach. And I would also support using all the funds that are currently used for killing animals in public shelters for spaying and neutering feral animals instead. I don’t know why you think I’m anti-solution just because I’m not a fan of a new tax.

I wasn’t thrilled with the plastic bag tax, idea either — it’s also regressive, and the exemptions for large retailers were unacceptable to me. I would have preferred that the city or county exercise their lawmaking powers to abolish the use of plastic bags altogether — without putting it to a vote at all.

Finally, I have plenty of respect for hammerhead’s knowledge — and enormous respect for the work she’s doing. I’m always a bit skeptical, though, of the analysis given to me by a bill’s most staunch proponents or opponents. If I can read the bill myself and analyze the numbers myself, and make up my mind for myself, why shouldn’t I? I wish more people would do that. Democracy would be more, well, democratic.

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[JoB]

waterworld..

i wish we could sell requiring pets to be neutered… but too many people would see that as an infringement upon their rights… and it would never pass.

There will always be a portion of pet owners who will not neuter regardless of whether they can afford it.

I like the concept of re-routing euthanization money to neutering, but there are problems with taking the money currently being used to euthanize mostly surrendered domestic pets and using that to neuter feral cats and dogs.

Neutering feral dogs and cats decreases feral populations but it doesn’t address the factors that create feral populations of domestic pets… un-neutered domestic pets… which is also one of the larger problems fueling the need for euthanization…

moving money from euthanization to neutering feral cats and dogs is a good long term goal, but we need to solve the problem of the large number of domestic pets ending up in our shelters before we can divert any dollars currently allocated to dealing with animal control.

i truly believe the best we can do is to encourage voluntary neutering… and if that means making it free or nearly free to those who can’t afford it, then i am all for it…

and i like the idea of pet owners picking up the tab for an pet population problem.

i too would have preferred the city had simply banned plastic bags, but don’t think it would have been any easier to sell in the inevitable referendum vote. The city didn’t put the fee to a vote… a referendum driven by citizen petition did.

and they did so by mainly by labeling it a regressive tax so everyone could feel good about voting it down.

Just as this one is being labeled a regressive tax… when the truth is that the prices people pay for pet food and therefore the tax they would pay is generally in direct relationship to their income .

Therefore the opposite is true… those with higher incomes buy more expensive pet food and are more likely to assume a larger proportion of this tax… so it’s not a regressive tax at all.

I too believe we would be better off if everyone read the bills themselves.. i believe that alone would increase the quality of the bills we are offered…

but i also believe that we cut our noses off to spite our faces when we turn down solutions that are offered because we don’t like parts of them or because we oppose added taxes on principle… or because they are labeled regressive.

this isn’t perfect legislation, but it at least addresses the problem directly and makes a direct effort to solve it without taking money from existing programs and without added cost to any taxpayer who doesn’t assume the discretionary expense of adopting a domestic pet.

In other words, this is just about as good a solution as we are going to get for curbing the ballooning population of domestic pets.

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[hammerhead]

Waterworld, thanks for your support I respect you not in full support of the bill.

The biggest issue with s/n is there are so many people who don’t believe in it. The hispanic community is one of my biggest issue, catholicism, cultures. I am not trying to be disrespectful. It is the truth.

Just go to craig’s list and see all the kittens being given away for free I contact them and ask them if I can spay the mom cat for them they say NO we want her to have kittens. I can’t fix that. They just don’t care. I (f.c.a.t) need more avenues to help people s/n their animals this like job said is step in the right direction.

Oh that homeless guy doesn’t want a roof over his head he is happy where he is at, at least thank god he had the common sense to get the cats fixed.

I at least hope you will reconsider supporting the bill, if you would like to come see what I am doing. Starting this week I will be starting to trap 50 cats. you can see what happens when people don’t s/n.

F.C.A.T.

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