My Plea to Stop the White House From Closing Privately-Funded, Privately-Operated Parks
Here is my letter to my Congresspersons:
Senator John McCain
Senator Jeff Flake
Representative David Schweikert
Help! Administration Orders Shut Down of Privately-Operated Parks in National Forest
Parks that require no Federal money, and actually pay rent to the Treasury, are being required to close
Sirs:
My company, based in North Phoenix, operates over 100 US Forest Service campgrounds and day use areas under concession contract. Yesterday, as in all past government shutdowns, the Department of Agriculture and US Forest Service confirmed we would stay open during the government shutdown. This makes total sense, since our operations are self-sufficient (we are fully funded by user fees at the gate), we get no federal funds, we employ no government workers on these sites, and we actually pay rent into the Treasury.
However, today, we have been told by senior member of the US Forest Service and Department of Agriculture that people “above the department”, which I presume means the White House, plan to order the Forest Service to needlessly and illegally close all private operations. I can only assume their intention is to artificially increase the cost of the shutdown as some sort of political ploy.
The point of the shutdown is to close non-essential operations that require Federal money and manpower to stay open. So why is the White House closing private operations that require no government money to keep open and actually pay a percentage of their gate revenues back to the Treasury? We are a tenant of the US Forest Service, and a tenant does not have to close his business just because his landlord goes on a vacation.
I urge you to help stop the Administration from lawlessly taking arbitrary and illegal actions to artificially worsen the shutdown by hurting innocent hikers and campers. I am not asking you to restore any funding, because no funding is required to keep these operations open. I am asking that the Administration be required to only close government services that actually require budget resources.
Sincerely,
Warren Meyer
Imagine that, he doesn't want the House to only fund the laws they like. And I can't imagine why the Democrats would refuse to allow the functioning of government as a negotiation point for legislation.
I'd be sympathetic if this had happened to any of your campsites that weren't in a National Forest or National Monument. But without proper resources in the National Forest, from the nuisance-level lack of clean-up to the truly impactful absence of emergency services, I don't see how the government can allow regular usage of the parks. There have already been several search & rescue operations, at parks across the country hampered by the government shutdown. In that context, your understanding of what "actually requires budget resources" is awfully myopic.
That's how they roll. Roads and bridges build themselves, you know.
people residing in public housing also pay rent, yet we call that welfare.
Let the American voters vote on it. Not just there representatives or so they call them self's. Then see what happens.
No--you want to know what "hostage taking" is? It's when Democrats scream and pout about spending billions on their cronies in "renewable energy" and the unions while crying how they need more taxes to take care of the poor! "Give us your money for whatever the hell we want to spend it on, or these poor people are going to suffer! And it will be ALL YOUR FAULT!" THAT'S hostage-taking. You lefties are masters at it.
And the only thing the Republicans are insisting on is that this same law be defunded because it is bad legislation, hurting an already horrid economy, costing jobs, causing thousands who were once full-time workers with benefits to become part-time workers forced to pay out-of-pocket on these "exchanges" (which can't even seem to understand the basics of running a viable, user-friendly website), and basically driving an economy on life-support further into cardiac arrest.
Anytime you have a House Speaker say, about a piece of legislation, "we have to pass it to find out what's in it," you can bet that the best interests of Americans are not held in high regard by those promoting that legislation. Here we are a few years later and there's a re-elected president on the left and a re-elected House on the right. the 2012 elections had two winners, one of whom has insisted that he will not negotiate. We have a do-nothing Senate run by Harry Reid, who recently said "we will not negotiate" and then said, only a day or so later, "we have negotiated our hearts out." Which is it?
Incompetence and corruption are the flavor of the day. Our elected leaders have become the elite, and we, the electorate, have become the proletariat resigned to supporting them. Socialism has not come to America at the point of a bayonet--but rather the point of Mr. Obama's pen.
In order to be honest with your argument, you need to openly acknowledge, then, the benefits the government receives from him and his company. They are noted: the parks are managed (and likely at a cost far less than if government employees were paid to do the same job), AND the Treasury receives millions in revenue to the nation's coffers.
What I think Mr. Meyer is saying is that in a time where the government is in debt up to its eyeballs, why shut down a revenue stream? To him, a businessman, it makes zero sense. Of course, to an executive branch bent, seemingly, on squeezing the nation for its own dubious ends, it makes all the sense in the world.
Up is truly down.
At least of what you claim is not true.
I bought an annual pass for the National Parks. I've opened a dispute via my credit card company, and have received a credit back now.
Gosh, I forgot that cardinal rule... You can't argue with crazy. Nevermind what I said, you're completely right.
Economy has improved since the law was passed actually...
Yeah-crazy isn't screaming that poor people will suffer if you don't get $1billion for a train to nowhere like Jerry Brown in CA. Or throwing people out of their homes so you can get Obamacare passed. Or telling boat captains in Florida that they can't take people on tours or fishing trips because of the government shutdown, but hiring extra Park Rangers to enforce the ban. Yeah--Dems are ALL about crazy.
A bill was passed to fully fund the Nat Parks Service; the Senate, or Harry Reid, has refused to take it up along with funding for NIH, Veteran's Benefits, and several others. All passed the House with bi-partisan support, no strings attached! Pass the bills and fund the majority of government service to people, and argue about the health care law later. No excuses for Reid, Obama, and Democrats. People are just pawns for their game of seize the power. States like AZ need to tell the feds to stay the hell out of their parks. On the other hand, what if there was a Government shut-down and nobody cared?
but we were gonna camp there the next 2 days.......motherfuckers!
Tea party republicans are dumb as a box of rocks.
It's now December 18th and recent figures prove that the economy has moved considerably since your writing in October....Housing, Jobs,unemployment,......And as we know Cruz has totally split the Republican Party and thrown the T Party under the bus. History and hindsight are amazing.
If you stopped watching the Republican propaganda organ, Fox so called News, you might not be so inclined to spew such asinine opinions.
Nice to see you blame the White House instead of the 'right wing' nuts of the tparty, who actually caused the shut down. But seeing that you are a Az. company and that it seems you are a right wing nut, that explains a lot.
I am not in favor of for-profit enterprises charging us MORE money to use OUR federal lands than we would pay to the forest service. I especially dislike the ones that charge an entrance fee that won't accept my America the Beautiful Pass I paid $80 for.
It is not appropriate that your letter to our congresspersons is published on this site. First of all, this issue was settled a long time ago. Second, this is not a political forum. Third, your comments are nonsense. The congress shut down OUR government. Your letter to McCain, et al, should have been requesting that they grow up and stop playing politics with OUR government. I will be writing a letter of complaint regarding this website -- you are out of line. Your comments are offensive. If you want to make money on OUR land, you must act in an appropriate manner.
Wait, republicans are against lawsuits. Oh, unless they feel they've been wronged (in this case, of course, it's not true) and want all the money.