By Andrew Ripemoff
Centuries ago, in a distant land called Colorado, a kind and beloved leader named King Owens ruled the countryside. Life was good in the Kingdom, where off in a small corner of the grounds of the monarchy's vast estate worked a humble man, tending to a lone goose.
But this wasn’t an ordinary goose. This was a goose who laid golden eggs - pure gold in fact. And each day, the humble man would collect the treasured eggs and take them to a spacious workshop called EnCana, where he employed many appreciative citizens to refine the mineral and transport it to sell it to villages near and far. In turn, the workers would take their lofty wages from the workshop and purchase goods from local shopkeepers.
Miles, for example, traded his earnings for new horseshoes for his wife’s mare. William spent his wages on the finest cut of beef. Berton used his wages to buy a 2008 Lexus LS 460 with leather trimmed instrument panel and the sport-tuned air suspension. And these transactions brought success to the blacksmith, to the butcher, to the Lexus dealer. And thus, from this one goose, an entire village prospered.
Then one sad day, King Owens was forced to relinquish his crown (due to term limits, of course). As his replacement, King Ritter, arrived at castle to tour the palace, he noticed the goose roaming the yard.
"What’s that?" King Ritter asked, pointing. King Owens replied, "It’s a goose." And King Ritter licked his lips:"Good. I’m starving." But King Owens stomped his foot, "NO!" You shall not eat this special creature." And King Ritter was confused: "Why not?"
Whereupon King Owens told him about the golden eggs, and about all the good it brought to everyone in the kingdom.
"But they’re in my yard. Why should I allow a commoner and his bird to live amongst royalty?" King Ritter asked.
King Owens answered: "Because he gives 5.7 percent of all the eggs to the King as severance tax." King Ritter seemed to understand, nodding his head in agreement.
One day, a few months into his reign, the new King spotted the goose munching on some grass near a large field called the Roan. "Stop that!" the King shouted. "This area is hereby protected and off-limits."
The man was confused: "But Your Royal Highness, the goose loves eating the grass here on Roan. It makes him more productive, and he’ll lay more eggs and everyone will benefit."
"Silence!" said the King. "I want this area for my playground. It shall not be touched."
A few weeks later, King Ritter approached the man with yet another royal decree concerning operations and impacts and 90 day moratoriums. The man read the lengthy rules and frowned. "These are very harsh, Your Royal Highness. Following all these rules will lower the goose’s output."
"We need to strike a right balance between production and concern for the environment," said the King. The man was puzzled yet again: "But King Owens let us be, and we never had a problem. Who came up with this burdensome decree?"
"My appointed royal court of the COGCC."
"What’s that?"
"The Colorado Oil and Goose Conservation Commission."
"With all due respect Your Majesty, I may have to leave the kingdom," said the man.
And this worried the King.
So he consulted with his court jesters, who were strange, oddly dressed freaks that sometimes went by the name "environmentalists." And they tried to appease King Ritter: Don’t worry about him" they said. "He’ll never leave Colorado. How could he? The goose is here."
"You’re right!" said the King. "He has to stay here."
"Yes!" shouted the environmentalists. "In fact, you should even make him give you more than only 5.7 percent of the eggs."
"Really?" asked the King, in an English accent.
"Sure!" They said. "The King in New Mexico gets 9 percent of the eggs."
This got King Ritter excited. "Nine percent! You know what I could do with all those golden eggs?"
And he issued yet another royal decree raising the severance tax to 9 percent.
A few days later however, the man failed to pay his tithing to the King, so the King sent out his knights to search for the man and his goose. They came back hours later.
"He’s gone Your Majesty," said one of the knights. "But he left you this note."
And it read:
Your Majesty,Sorry for the letter, but email hasn’t been invented yet. I pulled up shop and moved to Utah. The King there only takes 4.5 percent of my eggs and there aren’t burdensome regulations hurting my business.
Best of luck to you finding a new goose.
Sincerely,
Your Loyal Servant
King Ritter crumpled up the letter, but he didn’t have time to be upset, for an angry mob - the laid-off golden egg workers - were circling the castle.
"You killed the goose! You killed the goose!" They shouted.
The King and environmentalists pleaded: "We didn’t kill the goose. Over-regulated and overtaxed it? Yes. Killed it? No."
But the mob was unimpressed. They stormed the castle, replaced the King, "recycled" the environmentalists, and finally set up a goose-friendly business climate that eventually attracted another productive goose.
And everyone lived happily every after.