Zinke proposes $70 entrance fee at some National Parks

[xrp]

Fixed that for ya, champ, as I am not advocating higher cost to me for others' entertainment and recreational experiences. I'm in favor of higher costs for those who use it. It's really common sense.

So at the end of the day, pay to play, let public resources become a playground for the wealthy alone. Just imagine a wonderful world with a direct-user fee kiosk in front of each home so you can walk on the sidewalk. Why bother with education for kids that can't afford private school!

Yep, too bad sucker! Pretty soon only the 1%’ers will be able to get in the parks.

I heard they are also going to install gun turrets around the parks’ perimeters to gun down the unwashed 99%’ers to make sure they stay out.

Death to them all!

[retired jerry]

people with senior pass will also be able to go

[Aimless]

I strongly disagree with xrp's vision for the future of government services as a largely user-fee driven system and deny that it is "common sense". Because the remainder of what I might say about his ideas could easily stray from civil discourse, I will stop there.

[retired jerry]

one thing about user fees is the expense of collecting the money and enforcement

I'd rather federal income taxes pay for it

[markesc]

Can someone point me to a link that shows NPS Budget FY history (In simple terms). While I agree the budget has certainly not kept up with inflation I'm not seeing data showing that the budget has been slashed but frozen. Am I wrong?

I think the NPS also needs to be accountable for what they do with the money they have and I think too often the money goes to glitzy new day centers and offices before park maintenance.

I'd be interested to see how the ratio of NPS administrative versus park employees has changed over the last 10 to 15 years.

Couldn't have said it better myself!!!

[retired jerry]

I googled around a little but was also unable to find any long term trend of spending for NPS

That would be interesting

[drm]

I think the NPS also needs to be accountable for what they do with the money they have and I think too often the money goes to glitzy new day centers and offices before park maintenance.

Even the most detailed budget listing is not going to answer this very well. A lot of park buildings were built when parks were created a century ago (like Rainier) or after WWII. Many such buildings are going to be pretty badly dilapidated and needing replacement. Or maybe not. Maybe they worked just fine in a utilitarian sense and somebody wanted something flashy. My point is that knowing the difference between the two is not an easy thing to find out system-wide.

[retired jerry]

"I think too often the money goes to glitzy new day centers and offices before park maintenance"

That's not unique to park service or government. People would always rather pay for new stuff than maintain old stuff.

Day centers are good because more people go there and use them. Few people hike in the back country.

[Guy]

Even the most detailed budget listing is not going to answer this very well. A lot of park buildings were built when parks were created a century ago (like Rainier) or after WWII. Many such buildings are going to be pretty badly dilapidated and needing replacement. Or maybe not. Maybe they worked just fine in a utilitarian sense and somebody wanted something flashy. My point is that knowing the difference between the two is not an easy thing to find out system-wide.

Agreed, but it should not be hard to find the actual dollars budget by fiscal year and I can't! I'd just like to know if the often repeated statement that the Park Service Budget as been slashed is actually true or not.

From what I have been able to find out it seems that it's not true but a more correct statement would be that the NPS budget has been nearly frozen year over year.

I don't have an agenda here I'd just like the facts

[Chip Down]

one thing about user fees is the expense of collecting the money and enforcement

That's true of so many government revenue schemes.

As a classic illustration, consider the disastrous Portland arts tax. It's only, what, $30/head I think. Reduce that by the the administrative and enforcement costs, and the actual revenue collected is bizarre. I once saw a really enlightening analysis which did a great job of predicting how much revenue could be generated from voluntary contributions, and compared that to the actual net revenue from the arts tax after enforcement and admin costs. The conclusion was that voluntary contributions could have generated as much revenue as the tax. It was a very compelling analysis, not at all founded on a silly utopian view that people will send in their $ when asked nicely. So the conclusion is that some folks just get off on bureaucracy and intimidation.

Okay, I'm slightly off-topic. I'm not suggesting a voluntary contribution box at the park entrance. But my point is that there's a long history/trend of government agencies taking a confrontational approach to funding what they see as their mission, and extracting money from the citizens through increasingly creative and greedy ways. There's always some justification. "We need to do this because blah blah blah." I'm not buying it.