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The federales are so desperate for money that they're planning to shut down the National Endowment for the Arts. the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Since not one red cent of such funding has ever reached my pockets, except by fantastically indirect routes, by all means close those agencies.
They just cater to the arrogant cultural elite, anyway, and there's no reason that I and the millions of other regular folks should be forced to support them.
Hell, we can always watch us a football game when we want entertainment that we're forced to subsidize. The financial side of the team is often run as a tax shelter, the players generally develop their skills at public expense in our colleges, and the stadium is a drain on the public treasury.
But until Newt and his fellow budget-slashers muster the courage to go after the tax-eating parasites on the field and in the box seats, they've got some other cuts on the table: national parks and monuments.
One proposal to examine national parks and monuments like military bases, with an eye to closing some, has drawn some anguished whining from the environmental community.
They act as though it's unprecedented to close one of these facilities, but it has happened before, to no discernible effect.
Did the world end when 14,005-foot Mount of the Holy Cross, majestic centerpiece of Holy Cross National Monument established in 1929, reverted to mere national forest status in 1950? Did the apocalypse arrive when Wheeler National Monument became the Wheeler Geologic Area, or did life go on pretty much as always, even with one less national monument?
Another argument against closing national parks, or at least requiring them to pay more of their own way, is that they'd become commercialized.
So what? It's already happened. The meadows in Rocky Mountain National Park are severely overgrazed. But by elk, not cattle. Tourists visiting the park expect to see wildlife. The more wildlife they see, the better they feel about the park, the Park Service, and appropriations for the Department of the Interior. Elk are quite visible, and so the park has been managed, not to preserve the biological heritage of the planet, but to make sure there are lots of elk. It's about as natural as a feedlot.
But before taking those drastic steps, the Park Service ought to consider the revenue opportunities at hand.
For at least a decade, Montrose has been lobbying to get Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument upgraded to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.
This would involve no change in the area's boundaries, nor any real change in its management, so this desire baffled me until I ran across an economic development consultant familiar with the area.
For some reason,
he explained, people will
drive out of their way to see national parks, but not
national monuments. Maybe it's those little decals they
stick on the backs of their motor homes. I don't know why,
but I know they do, and you can figure on a substantial
increase in tourism if you've got a park instead of a mere
monument.
This explains why there used to be a billboard on the
edge of Salida, prominent to westbound travelers on U.S.
50, that urged people to continue driving another 132 miles
until they reached Montrose, where they ought to spend lots
of money while visiting Black Canyon National
Park.
So much for truth in advertising, but now I know why they wanted to stretch the reality about Black Canyon's status. And if it's worth something for a town to brag on a national park, rather than a monument, why doesn't the Park Service just charge a fee for any promotion-minded town that wants to be near a national park?
That is, let Montrose have its official Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park -- after paying the Park Service $50,000 a year. If Alamosa wants Great Sand Dunes National Park, rather than monument, then there's another $50,000.
And why stop at monuments? If national park
status is a good draw, why can't private enterprise buy
some too? Just think of the possibilities in Colorado
Springs from Seven Falls National Park, Cave of the Winds
National Park, Manitou & Pikes Peak Cog Railroad
National Park, even Wax Museum National Park.
The Park Service should also trademark the names of its parks. Here they are, operating the attraction at considerable expense to American taxpayers, and the folks making money from the attraction are the T-shirt vendors in Estes Park.
If you want to sell T-shirts and like paraphernalia with
Denver Bronco insignia, you pay a royalty. And if you want
to sell T-shirts that say Rocky Mountain National
Park
or Wild Basin,
then why shouldn't you pay a
royalty to the Park Service?
For some parks, this wouldn't be a good revenue stream,
but think of that park out west of Craig, along the Utah
line. If the Park Service could collect on every commercial
use of the word Dinosaur,
every cartoon Barney,
every Jurassic Park and Flinstones merchandising tie-in --
it might not just be self-supporting, it might be in a
position to put a serious dent in the national debt.
So here's an opportunity for a more productive and entrepreneurial government. And once the parks are making money, maybe the surplus can go to football.
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