Almalieque wrote:
Gbaji wrote:
No, it's not. What's your point?
Parks were the Republicans concern in the government shutdown. If the Republicans only cared about making sure that the Government spent money on what was listed in that list, then the parks would have been treated the same as all of the other Democrat led programs.
No. Parks were the Democrats concern, not the Republicans. The Dems used the threat of closing down national parks as part of their leverage in negotiations. The bit that the GOP was annoyed with was that the Obama administration decided that "closing down" parks because of cost reasons meant actually spending extra money hiring people to put up barricades to parks that are normally open to the public 24/7, so as to make sure that every person felt pain because the GOP had forced them to close the parks.
If they had just told the folks working at the parks not to show up for work, the GOP would have been fine with it. But they went the extra (and in some cases ridiculous) mile. The Liberty Bell has long been housed in a glass pavilion, allowing any passerby to view it, even without paying to enter the museum itself. During the shut down? They put a freaking tarp over the glass to make sure no one could see the Bell.
Some functions of government (like the national parks service) are an interesting case because these weren't things that the federal government created and started doing, but in many cases the national parks service took over parks that had previously been owned and operated by state or local governments. And in many cases, this was over protests by the locals that once federalized those monuments and whatnot would now be controlled by the federal government and it would apply strings and conditions for the people to view them. Which, in some cases, is precisely what has happened.
Having said that, land management *is* within the purview of the federal government, so there is some overlap. However, it is absolutely true that the GOP would prefer if most parks currently operated by the federal government were managed instead by state or local government. The federal government does not need to operate those parks. And the shutdown shows us why they should not. Ultimately, the government's control over such things is used as a tool to force the people to accept things they might otherwise not. If the federal government controls your access to a park you want to see, it can hold that over you. If it does not, it can not.
Which is precisely why we should maintain a small government to the greatest degree possible. Every single thing we give the federal government power over, is a thing they can use to hold power over us.