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Why close national parks

Now that you mention it, I am confused about what the House's job is if they cannot even keep the Govt. open. They appear to be incapable of doing anything for their salary.

You know that question crossed my mind about the White House and majority in the Senate.

Seems the House keeps living up the their Constitutional mandate, and the Senate, along with the Executive Branch, feel it better to see the governement shut down due to lack of spending authority.

But putting that aside, again, what part of the Constitutional powers of the House of Representatives are you struggling with?
 
I'm sure there are ways to keep them open if the government wanted to, but they don't want to. I don't know enough about how they budget or forecast to say if they could survive on receipts or not. But one this is for sure, if the rangers and support staff at these parks are not paid, then those parks should close.

Just to give you one example: We have Saguaro National Monument here in Tucson. It's actually two parks that sit east and west of the city proper. The facilities at these parks which require maintenance are a bunch of hiking trails and maybe 15 miles of paved road. I may be mistaken but I don't believe that there is even an outhouse in either part of the park. It will actually cost MORE money to keep people out of the park than it would to leave it open.
 
You know that question crossed my mind about the White House and majority in the Senate.

Seems the House keeps living up the their Constitutional mandate, and the Senate, along with the Executive Branch, feel it better to see the governement shut down due to lack of spending authority.

But putting that aside, again, what part of the Constitutional powers of the House of Representatives are you struggling with?

the offer being made to obama and the senate was akin to the ultimatum Austria-hungary demanded from Serbia after the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.
 
You know that question crossed my mind about the White House and majority in the Senate.

Seems the House keeps living up the their Constitutional mandate, and the Senate, along with the Executive Branch, feel it better to see the governement shut down due to lack of spending authority.

But putting that aside, again, what part of the Constitutional powers of the House of Representatives are you struggling with?

So you think the House has a Constitutional mandate to hold the govt. hostage if the minority party doesn't get everything they want? That does not sound like it would work to me. What would be the point of winning elections then? Show me where it says that in the Constitution.
 
Just to give you one example: We have Saguaro National Monument here in Tucson. It's actually two parks that sit east and west of the city proper. The facilities at these parks which require maintenance are a bunch of hiking trails and maybe 15 miles of paved road. I may be mistaken but I don't believe that there is even an outhouse in either part of the park. It will actually cost MORE money to keep people out of the park than it would to leave it open.

Yep, that's the kind of thing that just doesn't make sense. Since there's no out-buildings, no visitors center, etc... it's open air with no daily management - keep it open and don't spend money, time and effort to close it.
 
Yep, that's the kind of thing that just doesn't make sense. Since there's no out-buildings, no visitors center, etc... it's open air with no daily management - keep it open and don't spend money, time and effort to close it.

it probably has to do with the flora and fauna of the park, making sure the plants and animals don't get sick or hurt by careless people.
 
it probably has to do with the flora and fauna of the park, making sure the plants and animals don't get sick or hurt by careless people.

So an anti-Darwinist view. Interesting.
 
So an anti-Darwinist view. Interesting.

well put it this way, if you were a camper in a big park with lots of trees, like Yosemite, and have a campfire and don't take precautions to put it out properly, you might have a fire on your hands.
 
I'm not entirely sure how they deem workers non-essential and decide what to close, but if this is a partisan move its been done by Clinton, Bush, and Reagan during their shutdowns too.

Typically the lesson I gained from bureaucratic decision-making is that often times, it is among the least sexy reasons that drives actions (though certainly not always). I'm suspecting that if someone were to explain the criteria, you would get glazed eyes more than you would frustration. People looking for conniving decision makers will frequently instead find routine, procedure, and unanimity.
 
Typically the lesson I gained from bureaucratic decision-making is that often times, it is among the least sexy reasons that drives actions (though certainly not always). I'm suspecting that if someone were to explain the criteria, you would get glazed eyes more than you would frustration. People looking for conniving decision makers will frequently instead find routine, procedure, and unanimity.

Sure...which is why commissaries and exchanges on military bases are closed. Nothing quite says "common sense" like closing down facilities that generate revenue.:roll:
 
Here's another example of the pure showmanship of this "shutdown".

Park Service Orders Closure of Park that Receives No Federal Funding | Washington Free Beacon

The National Park Service has ordered the closure of a Virginia park that sits on federal land, even though the government provides no resources for its maintenance or operation.

The Claude Moore Colonial Farm announced on Wednesday that NPS has ordered it to suspend operations until Congress agrees to a deal to fund the federal government.

According to Anna Eberly, managing director of the farm, NPS sent law enforcement agents to the park on Tuesday evening to remove staff and volunteers from the property.

The Friends of Claude Moore Colonial Farm at Turkey Run Inc., a privately funded foundation, pays for all activities on the farm, while the land is owned by the NPS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Moore_Colonial_Farm
 
I'm growing increasingly confused here. I thought that shutting down tourism for a few days was hardly a pinch and that liberals were over-blowing the consequences of a shutdown. Now apparently the shutdown is harming Americans, because in part, tourism is down-and that is Obama's fault?
 
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the offer being made to obama and the senate was akin to the ultimatum Austria-hungary demanded from Serbia after the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

You know, that's a brilliant analogy. You run with that.

Again, what is the House doing that is against the tenets of the governing documents?
 
So you think the House has a Constitutional mandate to hold the govt. hostage if the minority party doesn't get everything they want? That does not sound like it would work to me. What would be the point of winning elections then? Show me where it says that in the Constitution.

Not to be cute, but where does it say they can't? What is the House doing that is un-Constitutional?

Perhaps the Founding Fathers thought such a check and balance was a good idea?
 
You know, that's a brilliant analogy. You run with that.

Again, what is the House doing that is against the tenets of the governing documents?

republicans have tried and failed to get the repealing of obamacare past the legeslature.

the constitution gave them the chance to change that in the 2012 election, the republicans made Obamacare one of their issues and they still lost.

They don't have the votes to repeal the law outright. the senate will not vote on anything weakening the affordable care act, and obama will never consider undermining his own law.

nothing in the constitution allows for one party to threaten to shut down the government in order to extract concessions that they could not achieve normally.
 
republicans have tried and failed to get the repealing of obamacare past the legeslature.

the constitution gave them the chance to change that in the 2012 election, the republicans made Obamacare one of their issues and they still lost.

They don't have the votes to repeal the law outright. the senate will not vote on anything weakening the affordable care act, and obama will never consider undermining his own law.

nothing in the constitution allows for one party to threaten to shut down the government in order to extract concessions that they could not achieve normally.

Funny, but I haven't seen any headlines blaring "Republicans thwart Constitution".

I'm thinking your frustration is clouding your perception of things.
 
well put it this way, if you were a camper in a big park with lots of trees, like Yosemite, and have a campfire and don't take precautions to put it out properly, you might have a fire on your hands.

How "anti-Darwinist" of you.
If the plants and animals haven't evolved enough to survive carloads of tourists dropping garbage and a little fire, they deserve to die. Survival of the fittest at its finest.
 
Funny, but I haven't seen any headlines blaring "Republicans thwart Constitution".

I'm thinking your frustration is clouding your perception of things.

To think that the House biting off their nose to spite their face is something the Founders would have condoned or that purposely short circuiting our economy and costing us billions that we supposedly don't have is part of the "job" of House members is more than a perception problem. You are knee deep in the Koolaid.
The 18% of the population that the T's represent must not be allowed to circumvent our laws or we are lost. I think you will see Obama take that stance in the next 2 weeks as the T's force the "showdown" on the debt ceiling. We may finally get some permanent fix for this after all. Because Obama will go to the wall on this.....make no mistake about it.
 
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I'll tell you why they are closing national parks, it is designed to hurt Americans and get media coverage, no other reason at all. There is always a line at the entrance to every NP with people paying 20 bucks to get in and that is plenty to pay the staff and keep parks open during a temporary gov shut down like this. It may or may not be enough to actually maintain the roads and facilities long term but there is no reason to shut our parks down other than the very reason Obama closed white house tours, make it hurt. The democrats and Obama are using us as pawns in their power play and I for one am sick of being sacrificed to protect the king.

I can totally see how the closure of the Lincoln Memorial in DC is making you suffer, suffer o so wrongly, all the way out in Idaho.
 
then who pays for the upkeep and maintenance of the parks? who pays for the security protecting the important monuments? Who pays the workers at the parks?

The war memorial is an open área.

It cost the government money to put up the barriers.

Can you explain why they would do that, spend money as opposed to not do anything which is free?
 
the offer being made to obama and the senate was akin to the ultimatum Austria-hungary demanded from Serbia after the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

Really?

The Republicans want to delay the individual mandate for 1 year, like Obama did unilaterally for corporations, and to have congressional staff have to enter the system just like anybody else.

How does that compare to anything you mentioned and how can yoiu be against that?
 
So an anti-Darwinist view. Interesting.

It might have more to do with the fact that people are, by and large, stupid and there will be no staff of any kind for rescues or medical treatment if needed.
 
well put it this way, if you were a camper in a big park with lots of trees, like Yosemite, and have a campfire and don't take precautions to put it out properly, you might have a fire on your hands.

How would having a couple of employees on hand prevent that?
 
Sure...which is why commissaries and exchanges on military bases are closed. Nothing quite says "common sense" like closing down facilities that generate revenue.:roll:

This stunt will cost us billions and you are worried about commissary profits? Is everyone on the Right losing their minds? Ultra low frequency waves maybe?
 
This stunt will cost us billions and you are worried about commissary profits? Is everyone on the Right losing their minds? Ultra low frequency waves maybe?

Dude, lose the hyperventilation.

What I'm talking about here is shutting down operations that are self sustaining. It's a stupid way to go about things. In fact it's so stupid that the only logical reason to order such a shutdown would be for purely political reasons.
 
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