fbpx

Unfunded Political Gifts

By Beacon Staff

Your May 23 issue contained two back-to-back articles about national parks written by the same reporter. They should have been linked or blended, for they demonstrate a perfect example of the Christmas tree approach politicians take in federal spending policy.

The first article describes Glacier National Park officials’ concerns about insufficient funding for the park’s various needs and about park resource limits threatened by increasing visitations. “We don’t know how to solve this,” says one official.

The second article tells how Sen. Jon Tester has inspired Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to issue free passes to federal parks, etc., for active-duty military personnel and their families. It means, of course, a loss in revenue for parks like Glacier, even if estimated to be “minimal” by Salazar.

The idea of passes for these deserving citizens is certainly worthy, but, as usually is the case with our Washington politicians, the revenue loss is not tied specifically to another replacement revenue source. I worked on a Capitol Hill congressional staff in the 1970s. Nothing has changed. Politicians routinely hand out gifts to curry voter favor without specifically funding them, adding to what has become a scary national debt.

Moreover, while Glacier officials wring their hands about growing park visitor impacts to the natural resources and funding problems in the first article, Tester is pleased the free passes would help attract more people to national parks (that have less revenue) in the second piece.

Is anyone on the same page? When will we see responsible budgeting policy?

Carl Rieckmann
San Tan Valley, Ariz.