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EDITORIAL: Downsize National Park Service, dumping costly, unpopular sites
Washington Times ^ | April 22, 2014

Posted on 04/25/2014 8:06:19 PM PDT by george76

When too much of a good thing can be too much.

...

the swollen agency spends $2.6 billion a year.

President Obama wants to spend still more money on parks, asking Congress to approve a scheme to spend an additional $1.2 billion over the next three years. The cash would be earmarked to celebrate the National Park Service’s centennial anniversary in 2016. It would fund, among other projects, an expensive youth work program and provide more muscle for the federales to wrestle land from individual property owners.

...

Few national parks are financially self-sufficient. The rest are on the dole, requiring taxpayers to subsidize a failure to attract visitors, revenue and interest. Fees paid by park visitors fund only a nickel of every dollar devoured by the Park Service. Taxpayers fund the rest.

Playwright Eugene O’Neill’s hillside home in the San Francisco Bay is now a National Historic Site. It costs federal taxpayers $687,000 per year to keep open, though visitors trickle through at an average of just seven a day. That’s $270 for each and every visitor. In contrast, the Columbus, Miss., home of O’Neill’s contemporary, Tennessee Williams, was restored by private donors and is open to visitors at no cost to taxpayers.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: California; US: District of Columbia; US: Idaho; US: Mississippi
KEYWORDS: agenda21; greenagenda; nps; parkservice; privateproperty; propertyrights; ruralcleansing; taxpayers
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1 posted on 04/25/2014 8:06:20 PM PDT by george76
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To: george76

But they’ve got all that ammo... and obviously would like to use it.


2 posted on 04/25/2014 8:07:14 PM PDT by ponygirl (Be Breitbart.)
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To: george76

Here in Michigan the state parks and forests have nicer facilities than the national parks.


3 posted on 04/25/2014 8:08:52 PM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: george76

How better to keep LAND out of the HANDS of the Proletariat?

How I HATE the Nation we’re currently forced to live in!

ALL of these b@stards need to go!


4 posted on 04/25/2014 8:15:26 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set...)
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To: george76
The cash would be earmarked to celebrate the National Park Service’s

There it is AGAIN --celebrate. Such a seemingly innocent word, yet do you realize HOW often this word is being abused..? It's like no one really knows what it means.

CELEBRATE diversity --see? How does one do that, really..?

Another slippery one is "ACCESS", as in "access to educational opportunities" or "access to grocery stores" "access to transportation".

The Maoists in this country are learning to hijack A LOT of words.

Sorry, but NO ONE needs a billion bucks to "celebrate" anything --let them buy their own Silly String and streamers.

And let's fire 60% of them, for starters.

5 posted on 04/25/2014 8:22:24 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: george76

the Poe house here in philly is essentially closed. I bet it cost millions a year to maintain.


6 posted on 04/25/2014 8:22:24 PM PDT by kvanbrunt2 (civil law: commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong Blackstone Commentaries I p44)
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To: gaijin

I like this better:

“Celebrate BUDGET REDUCTION”

Or how about:

“Celebrate SMALL GOVERNMENT”

Why not turn their verbal guns around on them and give a few blasts....?


7 posted on 04/25/2014 8:24:49 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: george76

In before some bureaucrat suggests transferring the surplus national park land to the Chinese.


8 posted on 04/25/2014 8:28:28 PM PDT by Fast Moving Angel (It is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind.)
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To: cripplecreek

We have a state run battlefield from the French and Indian War in our county which was slated to close due to budget cuts. Local volunteers stepped in, took it over and are running it better than the state ever did. The admission charge remains the same, but the huge drop in personnel expenses has changed the site from marginal to viable.


9 posted on 04/25/2014 8:33:45 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

to starve the Beast,,,
64000 dollar Question.


10 posted on 04/25/2014 8:34:37 PM PDT by Big Red Badger ( - William Diamonds Drum - can You Hear it G man?)
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To: cripplecreek

I spent many summers roaming the state forests In Michigan fifty plus years ago and that was the case back then!


11 posted on 04/25/2014 8:36:34 PM PDT by MeshugeMikey ( "Never, never, never give up". Winston Churchill)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Short answer - turn these “non-viable” National Park lands over to the BLM, who may then operate the land for the benefit of the Chinese government.

Just another income stream for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Beijing).


12 posted on 04/25/2014 8:40:55 PM PDT by alloysteel (Selective and willful ignorance spells doom, to both victim and perpetrator - mostly the perp.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Having visited and hiked in maybe a dozen of the great parks of the West, and having lived ten years in the Sonoran desert, which was not park land, I can only say that the National Park System is a godsend and a miracle.

I realize many here have never been to a real National Park. These birthplaces and such are hardly the gems of the system. And there is nothing east of the Mississippi, except marginally the Great Smokies, that compares to the vast canyon country of the Upper Colorado Plateau or the wonderlands of the high north or the spectacles of Yosemite.

I have seen, in contrast, what the private sector has done to otherwise unspoiled lands which, once compromised, are gone forever. Thank God we have had the wisdom to keep irreplaceable beauty from the grubby, mindless, destructive hands of the proletariat.

13 posted on 04/25/2014 8:54:21 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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Thanks george76.
Playwright Eugene O’Neill’s hillside home in the San Francisco Bay is now a National Historic Site. It costs federal taxpayers $687,000 per year to keep open, though visitors trickle through at an average of just seven a day. That’s $270 for each and every visitor. In contrast, the Columbus, Miss., home of O’Neill’s contemporary, Tennessee Williams, was restored by private donors and is open to visitors at no cost to taxpayers.

14 posted on 04/25/2014 9:03:50 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: hinckley buzzard

Certainly, that is the other side of this...OTOH, the system has mutated into a jobs program.


15 posted on 04/25/2014 9:13:07 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: gaijin

Democrats: Let’s Celebrate our brain damage


16 posted on 04/25/2014 9:17:09 PM PDT by Professional Engineer (No $#@t there I was...)
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To: george76

Turn small and obscure parks over to the states, or privatize them (with conditions).


17 posted on 04/25/2014 9:24:07 PM PDT by truth_seeker
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To: george76

Economy wouldn’t hurt but I can think of a whole lot of things a lot more worthless to spend money on.


18 posted on 04/25/2014 10:39:31 PM PDT by Sequoyah101
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To: ponygirl
Does the Eugene ONeil historic home have its own SWAT team? ( Just wondering.)
19 posted on 04/25/2014 10:51:05 PM PDT by wintertime
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To: george76
Downsize National Park Service, dumping costly, unpopular sites AND GIVE THE LAND BACK TO THE STATES!
20 posted on 04/25/2014 10:54:29 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Obama's smidgens are coming home to roost.)
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