National parks are being wielded to build opposition to the congressional budget impasse that could lead to the first shutdown of the federal government since 1995-96.
In a release sent wide and far, U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, raised the spectre of a shuttered Yosemite National Park in railing against Republicans he maintained are driving the government closer to a shutdown.
“This weekend, Yosemite might turn into ‘NOsemite’, as our national treasures would close their gates and send American families away,” said Rep. Markey. “House Republicans are telling the American families who would like to walk in one of our national parks this weekend to ‘take a hike.’ These forced closures could devastate the already fragile local economies of small communities which depend on national parks for tourism dollars.
“For House Republicans, the Tea Party is more important than the Tetons,” said Mr. Markey.
President Obama and Democrats have proposed significant and responsible budget cuts in an effort to meet House Republicans more than half way, the congressman's staff maintained.
Comments
Please save the parks for the people. Before you cut the parks make sure to visit the majestic sights that are inspiring and majestic.
re: comment from Reality Check: "The Democratic Pres., Senate and the House were supposed to present a budget before the last election..."
Not so many years ago, the federal fiscal year began on July 1st. That fiscal calendar was shifted to an October 1st start because Congress was often failing to do its job and pass the required budget bills by the deadline.
Sadly, the shift hasn't helped much; in too many years, partisan wrangling has resulted in finger-pointing and political posturing instead of productive work. In too many cases, our elected representatives are more interested in who gets the credit - or the blame - for any subject you can imagine rather than producing results.
Perhaps one way to promote some improvement would be to suspend all pay and benefits for all members of Congress and their staffs if all necessary budget bills aren't passed by the start of a new fiscal year...and require them to stay on the job without pay, 7 days a week, until they complete an important task that's part of their "job description."
Now...any bets on the odds we'll ever see that practical solution? :-)
I don't know why we would expect our elected representatives to behave any better than Joe Public commenting on the internet. Fixing our fiscal mess will require sacrifices, but from what I've seen neither party is ready to sacrifice its own sacred cow (pick your preferred entitlement). So, we keep going along grandstanding on a few measly billions in cuts when the real issue is in the trillion range. And down the road the problem grows.
Re: Jim Burnett If people get [angry] enough and they may when they get hit with what's coming. Going to be an interesting correction. Either that or we're done for and it seems at times that's what the aim is.
No, what they are saying is the parks will CLOSE. No one may go backpacking, hiking, rafting, canoeing, etc. I mean good luck enforcing it but anyone within the boundaries of a closed park could be charged with trespassing on Federal land. And if the government isn't involved who will maintain the trails? Bathrooms won't be open which may not seem like that large of a deal, but think if hundreds or thousands of people all went on the ground along the trail (eww), no one to pick up trash (except visitors, and trust me most are not as good at that as you would like to think). What about road maintainence? Many of the parks have remote roads that require year round attention to remain passable. So we like to bang on the government, but somebody has to be there to maintain our natural jewels. One person might not make the impact I speak of... but do you really believe you are the only person who has the same idea? No, thousands do and without some kind of infrastructure in place to manage the details our National Parks will quickly fall into disrepair. From which the recovery may cost us more than we saved in the short term by shutting them down.
Spot on, Reality check! The Democrats knew that their chances in the last election were dire if they passed another budget of deeper debt and spend, spend, spend as they usually do. Well, turns out it backfired and got a passel of 'em tossed out. Now they are crying about all the "children who will starve" if Paul Ryan's budget plan is passed... And you are MOST CERTAINLY spot on about the future of our parks if we keep kicking the can down the road..."future generations" may see fit that to pay off an even more massive debt by selling off our national parks! So what's it gonna be? Gonna still kick that can....?
This comment was edited to remove gratuitous language.--Ed.
Seems like a bunch of folks are missing the point...390 parks will close, 15K or so NPS employees (1 million or so feds in all) will be out of work for an uncertain amount of time with no certainty they will be paid for the time they are furloughed. Don't get lost in ideology, real people are invloved.
"Way to make it all about CAHA again samsdad1 - unreal. To my English friend, if you need some help finding places to go, regardless of the shutdown, I would love to help, please do not let a few angry people deter you from visiting this country, or you could just visit Canada, they have some lovely parks I believe are still open for business."
Now let us publically know what he can do that compares to the NPS system that may no longer be available to him? What do you have against me as this is a website about the NPS and its issues. I simply am expressing the hypocracy of so many people that claim one thing and then sue for another. Kind of like sueing against coal and oil for clean energy and sueing to stop wind farms and solar farms.
OH it is real, really it is about access. You will not have access to the park system if the government shuts down. This is EXACTLY what we are experiencing now in CAPE HATTERAS!!!! We make plans months in advance and pow a bird lays an egg that actually hatches and it shuts down 1.24 miles of beach each incident. Seems more damaging than a bunch of squirrels in D.C.